


Ten Scenes from a Relationship

by Laparoscopic



Series: EGS [5]
Category: El Goonish Shive
Genre: Bisexuality, Coming Out, Exhibitionism, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Fairy dolls, Family, Fan Art, Gen, Gender Swapping, Group Sex, Illustrated, Little Suze, M/M, Magic, Multi, OT3, OT3.5, Other, Polyamory, Pregnancy, Sex Toys, Transformation, Triad - Freeform, Voyeurism, gender fluid, relationship, relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-09-10 22:24:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 70,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8941753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laparoscopic/pseuds/Laparoscopic
Summary: Ten brief scenes in Sarah & Grace & Tedd's growing relationship. Takes place after The Scientist, the Squirrel, and the Artist.





	1. Of Course

Sarah lay on her back, head in Tedd’s lap, feet propped on the small of Grace’s back. She made the cross-stroke in a capital letter H between her two lovers as they sprawled on the basement floor, ostensibly working on homework. She struggled to keep her attention focused on the battered paperback copy of _Macbeth_ in her hands. It didn’t help her concentration that Tedd was female at the moment.

Tedd’s female forms usually seemed to take one of two general extremes: either a slim, androgynous form with breasts even smaller than Sarah’s, visually very similar to his male form; or else an extremely well-endowed “girly-girl” form with an hourglass figure that would make an anime character proud.

Unfortunately for Sarah’s flagging attention, Tedd was in the latter form this evening, and the large breasts near her face made it hard to focus on her reading. So far, the triad had not had any sexual experiences with swapped sexes, but Sarah kept getting sidetracked wondering how it would feel to play with those large luscious mammaries. She longed to find out for herself how they felt, and tasted, but Edward’s presence upstairs inhibited her from doing anything but fantasize. She squirmed a little, wondering what Grace could tell of her mental state—she probably knew exactly where Sarah’s mind was.

Her attention was momentarily diverted by a ringing phone upstairs. Edward’s unintelligible voice was barely audible downstairs, until a moment later he came over to the top of the stairs and called down.

“Tedd? Grace? I’ve got to run in to the office for a few.”

“What’s up?” asked Tedd. She sat up and twisted around to face the stairwell, forcing Sarah to sit up as well.

There was a slight pause, as if Edward were processing the female timbre of Tedd’s voice, then he responded, “Mackenzie somehow managed to lock his keys in the secure vault, and he needs to get access tonight. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

“Okay. See you tomorrow, then.”

There was another pause, then Edward returned, “Right. See you in the morning.”

“Good night, Edward,” Grace called up to him.

“Good night, Gracie,” Edward gave his traditional response.

Sarah listened to the sound of the door clicking shut, then held her breath a moment. When the sound of Edward’s car starting up in the driveway drifted down from outside, she turned and shoved _Macbeth_ back into her backpack. She looked at Tedd and Grace, struggling to keep a smirk off her face.

“Right. How’re your homework situations? Anything critical?” she asked them.

Tedd and Grace both gave her knowing smiles. “Fine, actually,” said Grace.

“Me too,” said Tedd.

“ _Excellent_ ,” hissed Sarah, and she pounced on Tedd, knocking her sideways onto a throw pillow. Tedd gave a startled yelp, and Sarah grinned as she swung a leg over Tedd’s legs and leaned in to kiss her. After a startled moment’s pause, Tedd responded in kind, kissing her back with passion. Sarah was a little surprised that female Tedd’s mouth tasted the same as male Tedd's; she had half expected her to taste sweeter, somehow. Sarah enjoyed the soft pressure of Tedd’s large breasts against her own more modest ones. She broke from the kiss, and pulled back a little.

“God, I’ve wanted to do that for the past two hours,” Sarah said. “I had no idea how distracting it would be to lay with my head in your lap until I got there.”

Tedd smiled. “Distracting? What could _possibly_ have been distracting you?” Grace laughed.

“ _You_ , you sexy thing,” Sarah said. “I may not have Grace’s sense of smell, but being so close to you, and smelling you, and having those lovely large boobs just by my face, so close, and yet so far…” She sighed, and sat up, still straddling Tedd’s prone form. She looked over to Grace, and was only slightly surprised to find that Grace was already almost completely undressed, just shoving her pants and panties down her legs, taking her socks with them as she went. Sarah’s breath caught in a slight hitch as it often did, on first seeing her lovers naked. _So beautiful,_ she thought, and smiled. She looked back down at Tedd and said, “I think we’re overdressed for the occasion.”

Tedd returned her a half-smile, and tugged at Sarah’s shirt, slipping her hands underneath, stroking Sarah’s ribs and back. Sarah _mmm_ 'd in pleasure. She gave in to temptation, and leaned forward, cupping Tedd’s huge breasts in her hands. “Wow.” Although Grace was a couple of cup sizes larger than Sarah was, Tedd currently went several steps beyond that. Sarah glanced up at Tedd’s face, and was surprised to see that Tedd was biting her lip, looking nervous.

“Is everything okay?” Sarah asked. She let go of Tedd’s breasts and sat up.

“I… Are you sure _you’re_ okay? With this?” Tedd asked.

Sarah stared at her blankly. “This what? Taking advantage of Edward’s absence for some happy fun sexy times?”

“No, not that, I mean… with _this_.” Tedd waved a hand down the length of her body. “With me being female.”

Sarah cocked her head, puzzled. “Uh, yeah? Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Tedd blinked rapidly, as if trying to hold back the tears forming in her eyes. “Of course?”

Sarah suddenly twigged to what was bothering Tedd, and she leaned forward to give her a gentle kiss. Then she stretched out on top of her, supporting her weight on her hands as she looked down into Tedd’s moist eyes. “Tedd… Sweetie. Love. I knew you were gender fluid long before I even considered the _possibility_ of this triad. You’re… _you_. Male, female, androgynous or super-busty, all of it. It’s _you_ I love, my sexy mad scientist, not the particular body you happen to be in at the moment. I’m not saying I don’t love playing with your gorgeous… um, cock, but, if you must know, tonight it’s your lovely tits I’ve been fantasizing about all evening. I love the you that’s _here_ , now.” She gave Tedd another tender kiss.

Grace stretched out on the floor beside Tedd, and snuggled in against them. “Told you,” she said softly to Tedd, smiling.

Tedd’s tears welled up again, but this time she was smiling, and she gave a teary-eyed little laugh. “Yeah. You did. Wise squirrel.”

Sarah rolled off of Tedd to the other side, so that Tedd was sandwiched between herself and Grace. “Did you really think I wouldn’t want to make love to you like this?” She rested a gentle hand on one of Tedd’s breasts.

“I… don’t know. I was… afraid. Nervous.” Tedd wiped the tears from her eyes.

“Then you should have said something. Communicate, dammit.”

“Yeah. Yes, I should have. It’s just… hard sometimes. When it’s so important.”

“If it’s important…” Sarah left the sentence hanging.

Tedd sighed. “Yeah, yeah. If it’s important, all the more reason to address it.” She gave a little half-smile, and shrugged. “Easier said than done, sometimes.”

Sarah propped her head up on her hand, and peered over Tedd at Grace. “And you. If Teddy told you, why didn’t you talk with _me_ about it?”

“Not her fault,” Tedd interjected hurriedly. “I… only worked up the nerve to talk to her about it last night." Tedd paused to kiss Grace's forehead, then turned back to Sarah. "We’ve made love on three different occasions, and I figured the time was fast approaching when we’d start in on some… variations. I was just afraid… well, you certainly love having my cock inside you. I was afraid maybe you wouldn’t want me without one.”

Sarah blushed at Tedd’s appraisal of her sexual appetites; it was accurate, but that just made it all the more embarrassing, somehow. “Well, yes, it’s true I love your… cock, but that’s only _part_ of you. And I haven’t been neglecting Grace in our lovemaking, have I?” She frowned and looked at Grace, suddenly worried. “Er, have I?”

Grace smiled reassuringly. “ _I_ certainly don’t feel neglected. You’re a wonderful lover, my love.”

“And it’s not as if I don’t come like gangbusters when one of you is going down on me, or stroking me; I don’t _need_ cock, I just… enjoy it. Fingers are nice, too.” She picked up Tedd’s hand and kissed her fingers, then slowly sucked the middle one into her mouth. Tedd inhaled sharply, and Sarah was pleased to see Tedd’s hardening nipples press up through the fabric of her shirt.

Sarah sat up and began unbuttoning her blouse. “Now. What was I saying about us being overdressed?”


	2. Fairy Doll

Grace sucked air through clenched teeth and whimpered slightly, her back arching, and Sarah smiled to herself at the reaction as she ran her tongue up the length of Grace’s deliciously wet pussy. She lifted her eyes to exchange a happy glance with Tedd, who was sucking on one of Grace’s nipples. She could tell they had Grace close to the edge, and she flicked her tongue energetically over Grace’s clit, hoping to push her over the top.

There was a soft _pop_ of displaced air, then Nanase’s voice, “Hey, guys, how’re you— _Eeep!”_ There was another _pop_. Sarah lifted her head up from between Grace’s thighs, her jaw dropping.

“Was that…” she began.

“Did Nanase just…” Tedd trailed off.

Grace, the only member of the triad who’d been face-up during the brief intrusion, propped herself up on her elbows and panted, “ _Oh_ , yeah. That was Nanase’s fairy doll.”

There was a brief pause as the three of them digested that fact. Sarah’s libido was instantly quashed. She sat up and buried her face in her hands.

“Well… _fuck_ ,” said Sarah, succinctly. Suddenly she felt, not just naked, but _exposed_. She grabbed a fuzzy throw blanket from where it was draped over the arm of the couch and wrapped herself in it.

They all jumped slightly as Tedd’s phone began to ring, the ringtone a lively bluegrass riff performed by a group called Ugly Cousin. They all looked at one another, then Tedd heaved himself to his feet to grab the phone.

“Verres’ house of pleasures, how may I help you?” After a pause, he turned to Grace and Sarah. “She hung up on me.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “Imagine that.”

“‘Verres’ house of pleasures’?” Grace asked. “Where did _that_ come from?”

Tedd sighed. “I dunno. I was just trying to defuse the situation with a little humor.”

“ _Very_ little,” Sarah said.

“Hey, what would _you_ have said?” protested Tedd.

_“Hello?”_

“Boring.” He plopped down on the couch.

Their disagreement was cut short by the phone ringing again. Tedd answered it, and tapped the speakerphone button before saying, “Hey, ugly cousin. You’re on speakerphone.”

There was a slight pause, but this time Nanase didn’t hang up. “Uh… Hi, guys.”

“Hi, Nanase.” Grace sounded annoyingly normal and chipper, to Sarah’s ears.

“H’lo.” Sarah had difficulty getting anything more out past the lump in her throat. She felt like her entire body was one gigantic blush.

There was a long awkward pause, which Tedd finally broke by saying, in an excessively sweet tone of voice, “So, cuz, have we learned an exciting new lesson today, about the magical uses of telephones, and the advisability of calling ahead _before_ materializing in _someone else’s house?_ ” Sarah blinked. She hadn’t known Tedd was capable of that level of sarcastic snark, but perhaps getting cock-blocked by his "ugly cousin" brought it out of him.

“Uh. Yeah. Sorry about that. I didn’t think—well, obviously I didn’t think. I mean—Um. Sorry. I assumed—I hadn’t realized you guys—” There was a pause, and Sarah could hear what sounded like Ellen in the background, saying something unintelligible but sharp. Nanase took a deep breath, and her voice firmed up. “Right. No excuses. I apologize for invading your privacy.”

Sarah looked at Grace and Tedd. She didn’t want to respond with a reflexive “Oh, that’s okay,” but she wasn’t sure what, exactly, was the appropriate thing _to_ say. She shrugged and held her hands out, palm up, at a loss for words. Tedd also shrugged, leaving it to Grace to say, “Thank you for that. We appreciate and accept your apology.” She glanced at Tedd and Sarah, who both nodded.

“Thanks. And again, sorry.”

“Wha—” Sarah began, then stopped and cleared her throat. “What was so important you had to pop in on us for it, instead of just calling?”

“Um… Embarrassingly, nothing urgent. Ellen and I just wanted to know if you three wanted to go to the comedy club with us tomorrow night.”

There was a brief pause as they absorbed that, then Sarah burst into slightly hysterical giggles, which prompted the same from Grace and Tedd. Sarah could hear Nanase and Ellen laughing over the phone too. They laughed a little longer than they might have normally, in response to nervous tension.

Tedd recovered his voice first. He shot a questioning look at Sarah and Grace, who both nodded. “Yeah, comedy sounds pretty good right about now.”

“Oh. Good. Well, I’ll, uh, let you get back to things. We can talk about details later. At a, a, more convenient time.”

“Sounds good.”

“Later, then. And, again, I’m _sorry_.” Nanase hung up.

Sarah blew out a deep breath and slumped back against the couch, letting the fuzzy throw fall down from around her shoulders. “Well. _That_ was a bit of a buzzkill.”

“Well, it doesn’t have to be,” said Grace. She snuggled up against Sarah and kissed her on the cheek. “Did that really bother you that much?”

Sarah squeezed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose. “ _Sweetie_ …”

“Yes?”

Sarah looked over at Grace. Sitting there as comfortable as she ever was, even while nude.

“Did that _really_ not faze you?”

Grace shrugged. “Not much. I mean, I get why it bothers you, sex is a private thing, but, well, she’s a friend. So she saw a bit more of me than she had before. I doubt she had time to see much of anything anyway.”

“She actually saw _less_ of you, with my head buried in your crotch, and Tedd’s face in your tits. And neither Tedd nor I are as cheerfully nudist as you are; she _definitely_ saw more of both of _us_ than she ever had before.”

Tedd groaned. “At least I was face-down at the time…”

Sarah flinched again as Tedd’s phone rang with Nanase’s ring tone once more.

“Hey cuz. Forget something?” Tedd put the phone on speaker. But there was no immediate reply from Nanase, just a low murmur of voices. “Hello? Nase? You there?” Frowning, Tedd turned up the volume.

Nanase’s voice was muffled, and it was quickly obvious that she had butt-dialed them. Concentrating, Sarah could just make out the words.

“—like she was about to _explode_. God, she’s hot enough as it is, but seeing her on the verge of coming like that— _wow!_ ”

“Oh, jeez. Wish _I_ could have seen that.”

“Looked like Sarah really knew what she was doing. Cute little butt, too. Even Tedd—”

Blushing, Tedd cut off the call.

Sarah looked at Grace, who was wide-eyed, with her mouth hanging open. With her dark complexion, it wasn’t easy to tell, but Sarah was pretty sure that, for a change, _Grace_ was the one doing the blushing. “You were saying?”

Grace licked her lips. “Ah. Uhm.”

Tedd powered off his phone completely and tossed it to the opposite end of the couch. He slid down to sit leaning against the couch beside Grace, slipping an arm over her shoulders and sandwiching her between himself and Sarah.

“So. Ready for some explosions?” he asked cheerfully.

Grace shut her eyes and buried her face in Tedd’s shoulder. “Actually…” she muttered.

Sarah’s eyebrows went up. “Actually what?”

“Actually… that kinda, um…” Sarah realized that Grace’s nipples were hard as little rocks, and what she’d initially taken as a blush of embarrassment was, in fact, a flush of arousal.

“Turned you on?” Sarah completed the sentence.

Grace nodded, her head still buried in Tedd’s neck. “I… uh. Didn’t know that. About myself.”

“What, that you have a streak of exhibitionism? That’s not exactly news to the rest of us,” Tedd said drily.

“No!” Grace lifted her head, and frowned, shaking her head. “I know I don’t have much body modesty, by normal social standards, but that’s _not_ the same thing as, as, getting _turned on_ by having someone watch me making love. I’ve never felt aroused just from being naked around other people.”

“Ah. True. Sorry, love.” Tedd kissed her forehead, and, apparently mollified, she settled back into a cuddle between Tedd and Sarah.

Sarah lay down and put her head in Grace’s lap, pulling the throw blanket up over her. She thought back over the sequence of events. “Was it the being watched that turned you on, or hearing them talk about it?”

Grace thought a moment, stroking Sarah’s hair as she did. “The latter. I didn’t feel that way until the second call.”

“So, it’s not exhibitionism per se; rather, you were turned on by knowing that you turned _them_ on.”

“I… guess so? That fits.”

“To tell you the truth… I also felt a little of that, hearing them admire my, uh, skills. And butt.”

Tedd chuckled. “Well, it _is_ a truly delicious butt.”

“And you _are_ wonderfully skilled at what you were doing just then.”

Sarah snorted and shook her head, but was secretly pleased with their responses.

“In any event, that’s not exactly exhibitionism. I don’t think we have to worry about you making a habit of jumping naked out of the bushes to flash random strangers.”

“Truly,” Grace said. “In fact… I think the fact that it was _friends_ , not strangers, was part of the, uh, thrill. I don’t really care about turning on strangers.”

“Hmm. That gives me some interesting ideas for your _next_ birthday party…” Tedd mused.

 _“Tedd!”_ Grace and Sarah chorused.

“What? Can’t a fellow dream?”

Sarah opened her mouth to further chide him for his perverse imagination, but suddenly her mind was flooded by a few choice mental images of her own. Of Elliot watching her with both her lovers, seeing what he’d missed out on by breaking up with her. Or Ellen and Nanase experiencing Grace’s powerful orgasms first hand. Or Susan getting a more complete answer as to what sex was really like. She shut her mouth and was glad her blushing face was turned away from Grace and Tedd.

“That’s not…” Grace trailed off.

“Not what?” Tedd asked after a moment’s pause.

When Grace didn’t seem inclined to answer, Sarah said, “Um. In the interest of honesty and open communication… I have to admit, I find that idea disturbingly attractive.”

“Me too,” Grace admitted. “But, with an emphasis on the word ‘disturbing’.”

“Indeed.”

“Not something I’d ever want to actually _do_ , mind you,” Grace said.

“Yeah, mixing sex with friendships sounds like a recipe for disaster.”

“But as a mental image…”

“A fantasy…” Sarah rolled onto her back so she was looking up at Grace and Tedd from Grace’s lap. She grinned through her blush up at her lovers.

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

 

 

 


	3. Visual Stimuli

“You don’t _have_ to do this if you don’t want to, Sare.” Sarah felt a little guilty; it seemed like Tedd was reading her hesitation as reluctance, which truly it wasn’t.

“I _want_ to do this, really I do. I’m just not certain about some of the… details.” She tried to say what she was hesitating about, but couldn’t quite bring herself to verbalize it.

“Which details?” asked Tedd. He was sitting in front of his computer, a set of transformation specifications displayed on his screen.

“Uh…” Sarah blushed, and, in lieu of speaking, gestured to a particular subset of specs on the screen.

“Oh, you don’t know what size penis you want?” Grace asked cheerfully.

Sarah sighed. “It sounds silly when you put it like that.”

“Well, what are your concerns? Too big, too small, or what?”

“I… the ‘default’ male version of myself, the one we’ve been using since your birthday party.” She looked at her lovers, both looking back at her with interest. “Well, when looking at myself in the mirror, I always felt a little bit, ah, underwhelmed.”

“Bigger isn’t always better.”

“Ehh…” Sarah shrugged ambivalently. She had heard that saying, and, until she’d become sexually active herself, had assumed it to be true. That was before she’d had sex with Grace in a male form, who was able to adjust his penis size to her exact pleasure level. Sarah had been somewhat abashed to discover that she was a size queen. She loved the feeling of being stretched open to her limits, totally stuffed with cock to just shy of the edge of pain.

“ _You_ may like a huge cock totally filling you up, but you aren’t going to be making love with yourself,” Grace pointed out. That comment prompted a thoughtful look from Tedd. “Neither of us are wired exactly the same way you are.”

“Ah. True.” Sarah took a mental step back. “Right. I guess I should be asking _you_ two to decide what size I should be, then.”

“Well, first off, do you want us to be female or male?”

“Female, if you don’t mind, at least for the few first times. I don’t think I’m quite ready for guy-on-guy sex just yet.”

Tedd grinned. “Fine by me.”

“By extension, I assume you’re just interested in vaginal sex the first time around, not anal?”

“Uh, yeah.” Sarah was still sometimes taken aback by Grace’s matter-of-factness about matters sexual, but it was an admittedly useful counterpart to her own bashfulness.

“In that case, I’d go for this,” Grace said. She leaned over Tedd’s shoulder, her hands flying across the keyboard as she flipped between two different windows to perform a series of quick operations. The resulting figures were really not much larger than Sarah’s “default” male specifications.

Sarah looked at the settings, then back at Grace. “You just copied Tedd’s natural baseline specs,” she observed with a wry little smile.

Grace smiled sunnily. “I know. Pretty near perfect, as far as I’m concerned.”

Sarah laughed, and Tedd blushed and smirked. “Well, I can’t argue with that,” Sarah conceded. Grace turned back to the computer.

“Pubic hair—yes, no, trimmed?” asked Grace.

“Your choice.”

“Okay, just some at top, but no dental floss on the shaft or balls, if you don’t mind,” Grace said, as she adjusted settings accordingly. “And let’s make it the same color as the hair on your head.”

“Any other specifications you want changed?” Tedd asked.

“Did you remember to make it, uh, sterile?”

“Yup. I’ve configured the system so that all new forms are non-fertile by default, unless you specifically request it. And confirm, three times.”

“Then I think we’ve already covered the rest. An extra six inches of height, short hair, a bit broader and more muscular in the chest than usual, and the, uh, what we just discussed.”

“The Perfect Penis Proportions?” grinned Grace.

Sarah giggled. “Well, as long as I’m designing a body from scratch, I might as well make it one I like.”

“Indeed. It’s fun to try out different things,” said Grace.

“Should I go ahead and make a watch for you with these settings, or just load them into the TF gun?”

“Um… let’s just go with the gun, for now. If I don’t want to tweak any other settings after I try it out, we can lock it into a watch.”

“The only reason I suggest a watch…” Tedd hesitated. “Do you want to experience this form alone, your first time?”

“Hunh? What do you mean?”

“Well, I was just wondering. Since it’s the first time you’re doing anything sexual while in a male form, do you want to take a watch home and play with this form by yourself first, to get to know it a bit better? Or do you want to explore it with us?”

Sarah paused, thought a moment, then shook her head. “I’d rather explore with you, if you don’t mind. You’ve both been guys; you can help me with anything that comes up.” Then she winced at the accidental double entendre. Tedd and Grace just grinned.

“It’s just, I was alone when I first experimented with changing to female, and it was kinda fun to explore on my own. I didn’t know if that was what you’d prefer.”

Sarah considered that part of Tedd’s past. “That must have been overwhelming for you, at first.”

Tedd shrugged. “A little. I don’t think I dared to get fully undressed the first dozen or so times I transformed.”

Sarah looked at him incredulously. “Really?”

“Well… maybe the first half dozen times.” He paused. “Okay. Three times.” Sarah laughed.

“How long did it take you to start, you know, playing with yourself?”

“That _did_ take me a bit longer. Or at least, it took me a bit longer to figure out how to do it _successfully_. It’s a lot simpler for guys. My sex ed background wasn’t very in-depth in those areas, back then. And… Done.” Tedd had been working on the computer as they talked. He pressed a button on the TF gun connected to the computer, then clicked an on-screen button. A “Data Transferring” progress bar flashed on the screen, and they all sat staring blankly at it for a minute, until it was replaced with a “Transfer Complete” dialog. Tedd clicked “OK” and disconnected the cable leading to the gun.

Tedd spun around in his chair and grinned up at Sarah. “So. Ready to find out how it feels to pee standing up?”

“No! I mean, yes, I’m ready, but—I’m—that’s not what I—” She spluttered to a halt, laughing and blushing furiously, Tedd and Grace laughing with her.

“You sure you father isn’t coming home until late?” Sarah asked Tedd, as the laughter trailed off.

“He’s got a Skype meeting with some folks in Japan. He’s never come home before eleven for one of those, and it’s usually after midnight.”

“Okay.” Sarah took a deep breath, and said, “Let’s do this thing.”

One convenient thing about being lovers with Tedd and Grace, Sarah reflected, was that doing transformations had become simpler. She didn’t have to worry about her clothes ripping, or hiding behind a curtain during the transformations. She simply undressed, and draped her clothes across the end of the couch to allow for ease of re-dressing, in case Tedd proved wrong about how late his father would be out.

She looked up from her clothing to find that while she undressed, Tedd had transformed to her semi-androgynous “female self” form. Grace gave a wolf-whistle as Sarah stood before them naked, and Sarah blushed.

“Hey, gorgeous, you sure you want to be a guy tonight? You’re looking awfully yummy to me,” Grace said.

Sarah grinned and relaxed a little. She still had problems sometimes believing that her loves found her beautiful, but Grace certainly made her feel sexy. “I hope you’ll find male me just as yummy.”

“If it’s you, you’ll be yummy, no matter what the body,” Grace said.

“Ready?” asked Tedd.

Sarah took another deep breath, then nodded. “Fire when ready, Mr. Sulu.”

Tedd laughed, and shook her head. “The nerdier you are, the hotter you get,” Tedd said, as she lifted the TF gun from the desk. She checked a few settings on the side control panel, then raised it and fired.

Sarah saw a brief flash of light, and experienced the usual moment of vertigo as the world blurred and shifted around her. She blinked, then realized that she was now looking _down_ at Tedd and Grace. Not from a huge height, just six inches higher, but it was noticeable.

“ _Mrrroww…_ ” purred Grace. “Yummy _indeed_.” Sarah couldn’t help but notice that her eyes were dark and dilated with interest.

“You said it,” Tedd agreed.

Sarah looked down at her— _his_ —body, and had to agree. He felt slightly disassociated from what he saw—he knew that it was his own body he was looking at, but it was so alien, it was like looking at a stranger. A very hot and sexy stranger. Sarah ran his hands down the length of his torso, and shivered at the sensation of muscle under skin, no feminine padding on the form. He turned around to look at himself in the full-length mirror, and was startled once more by the alien figure he saw.

“Looks nice from back here, too,” Grace observed cheerfully, when Sarah’s back was turned towards her. Sarah barely even heard the words.

“Wow.” Sarah swallowed, and felt a blush rising in his face as he admired the sexy new body he had. He was surprised to find that the blush wasn’t the only thing rising. His cock was lengthening and hardening, the head of his cock emerging from the foreskin even as he watched. “Jeez, that was… quick,” Sarah said. He licked his lips as the arousal he felt at seeing such a sexy cock made his cock even harder, and sexier. A positive feedback loop of the nicest sort.

Tedd and Grace both chuckled. “Welcome to being male, sweetie. You’ll get turned on a lot more easily, and faster, than when female,” Tedd reminded him.

Sarah was hesitant about touching himself, but that _was_ part of the point of all this. He was grateful Tedd and Grace were giving him a few moments to adjust, not approaching him just yet. Hesitantly, Sarah reached down and grasped the now rock-hard cock— _My cock!_ he thought—and gasped. Without even thinking about it, he slowly stroked his hand up and down, amazed at how different it all felt. Somehow more intense, yet more diffuse—similar erotic sensations, but spread out over a large area, not concentrated in a tiny clitoris. As he stroked, he adjusted his grip and speed, the feedback he was feeling giving him more guidance than Tedd or Grace ever could have, when they were male and she was stroking them. The feelings grew, hotter and sexier, and he stroked faster and faster, until suddenly—

 _“Fuck!”_ Sarah came with a startled cry, knees buckling as he shot his first load all over the floor and mirror in front of him. Thankfully, Tedd and Grace seemed to have anticipated this response, and they were there to catch him by the arms, saving him from crashing to his knees.

“Gotcha, sweetie!” Grace said, as Sarah fell backwards into their arms, and the three of them collapsed to the floor in a laughing pile. Sarah was unsurprised to find Grace already naked, and Tedd was shirtless, apparently having been interrupted in the act of undressing by Sarah's orgasm.

Sarah panted for a few moments, collecting his scattered thoughts, then said, “Jeez, I have never come that quickly in my _life._ Holy moly, that snuck up on me.” He lifted his hand to his nose and sniffed, then licked some of his cum off the back of his fingers. “Hmph. I don't taste as good as you guys do.”

Grace took his hand in hers, and sucked on his fingers, eliciting a shiver from Sarah. “Hmm. I disagree, I think you taste yummy.”

Tedd stretched out a finger to collect some of Sarah’s cum dripping down the mirror, and performed her own taste test. “I agree with Grace. I suspect we all prefer the taste of someone _else_ to our own flavor.”

“Maybe,” Sarah said. Then he shook his head and sat up. “I'm sorry, you guys. I had wanted to, uh, share my first male orgasm with you, not do it… solo.”

Grace chuckled. “You _did_ share it with us. Just maybe not in the way you'd imagined. Watching you was pretty darn hot.”

“Sure was,” Tedd agreed. “There's nothing to apologize for.”

Sarah looked down and fondled his semi-flaccid cock curiously, examining it, then slid an exploring hand down to feel his balls. “Ouch!” Sarah jumped a little.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, just… I knew balls were sensitive. I hadn’t realized just _how_ sensitive.” Tedd and Grace laughed sympathetically.

“Play carefully, love,” Tedd said, as she slid her leg out from under Sarah and stood up, unbuckling her belt.

For the first time since transforming, Sarah really looked at Tedd, and he sucked in a sharp breath at the sight. Sarah had always found Tedd to be beautiful, and sexy, but _now_ —now, the sight of Tedd’s pert little breasts, the curve of her hip as she slid out of her jeans, the swell of her pubic mound with its little tuft of dark purple hair up top, _all_ of her was utterly captivating. Sarah's jaw dropped open as he watched Tedd undress—simply disrobing, not trying to make a show of it, and yet she was hotter and more erotic than she'd ever been, in Sarah's eyes. He hungrily watched as more of Tedd came into view, and licked his lips as he traced the contours of her body over and over with his eyes.

“My… _God_ , you're beautiful,” Sarah whispered. His cock, which had been slowly shrinking in size, twitched in response to the erotic vision before him.

“Hmm?” Tedd seemed momentarily distracted, then she took in Sarah's hungry gaze, and the rising evidence of his renewed interest. “Oh.” She grinned. “We _told_ you that men respond more strongly to visual stimuli. Now you see what we meant.”

Sarah nodded. “Uh. Yeah. I remember feeling some of that at Grace’s birthday party. But it wasn’t quite this… intense.”

“Well, we weren’t naked, then,” said Grace.

“Yeah, that would have been another kind of birthday party altogether,” joked Tedd.

Sarah nodded, not really hearing their words, his gaze locked on Tedd. Tedd turned away from Sarah and gave a saucy little twitch of her slim hips. Sarah swallowed, eyes locked on Tedd’s cute little ass as she walked over to drape her pants over the back of her desk chair. When she turned around to walk back, she burst into giggles at Sarah's gobsmacked expression. “Oh, Sarah–my–love, if you think _I'm_ hot, turn around and get a load of our Grace.”

“Uh…” Sarah had been sitting half in Grace’s lap, since she had saved him from crashing to the floor. He didn't want to tear his eyes away from Tedd, but Tedd was gesturing towards Grace.

Sarah scooted off of Grace’s lap, and pivoted around, the better to see her. What he saw took his breath away.

Sarah knew, intellectually, that it was just Grace, in her normal human form. That she hadn’t changed form or anything in the last five minutes. Sarah knew Grace’s body intimately, having studied it at length while sketching her, and also while making love with her. Sarah knew Grace’s human female body better than Tedd’s, and in many ways, better than she knew her own.

All that familiarity seemed moot, now. Or perhaps it contributed to the effect. Tedd was right. Tedd was beautiful, but Grace— _Grace_ was another order of magnitude entirely. Sarah felt himself breathing more heavily just looking at her, his eyes tracking up and down the length of her body. Her beautiful smooth brown skin, her angelic face with its wide, loving smile, the dark brown nipples on her gloriously large breasts, the lovely cleft between her legs where her dark inner labia were just peeking out from between the outer lips, her smooth long legs. All of it was a heavenly vision, an erotic spectacle unlike anything Sarah had experienced before.

Especially her breasts. _Good grief, why have I never realized how wonderful breasts are before?_

Sarah didn't know how long he sat there, frozen and staring, until he felt Tedd kneel behind him, wrap her arms across his chest, and kiss the back of his neck. He shuddered in response, and closed his eyes.  _Oh, yeah, right; short hair to give better access to my neck_. Sarah’s neck trailed a close third place behind genitals and nipples for most sensitive erogenous zone. Tedd’s arms slid down his torso, and she lightly pinched Sarah’s nipples, provoking another erotic shiver.

Sarah felt Grace’s lips on his own, and his eyes flew open. He kissed her back, his hands rising up almost of their own volition to fondle her luscious breasts.

They broke apart, Sarah panting slightly, and he glanced over at the couch. He shook his head, and snorted. “Given how often we end up making love down here, we ought to replace that couch with a futon. Or sofa bed.”

Tedd chuckled. “Not sure how I’d explain that one to my father.”

“‘Hey, Dad, the current furniture is sub-optimal for my love life. Could I have a couple thousand bucks to buy a sex sofa?’” suggested Grace.

Tedd choked. “No. _Definitely_ not.”

“Well, we could head up to my room,” suggested Grace, standing up in front of Sarah. This placed her crotch right at Sarah’s face level, and he sucked in a hungry breath at the sight of her beautiful, swollen pussy. Which also flooded his nose with the smell of her wet sex.

He reached out and wrapped his arms around her ass, and pulled her close, burying his face between her legs. He thrust out his tongue and gave her a gentle lick, then moaned as the taste of her arousal flooded his mouth. Grace gasped and grabbed his head in her hands, nails digging into his scalp deliciously. Sarah licked her again, and again, and Grace’s knees slowly buckled and she lowered herself to the floor. She lay back, spreading her legs open to Sarah.

“ _Or_ , we could just stay right here,” she said, slightly breathlessly.

Tedd chuckled. “And _this_ is why we end up down here so often.” She crawled over to lie next to Grace, and lowered her head to suckle on one of Grace’s nipples.

Sarah stared at the vision of his lovers, stretched out before him, and shook his head slowly. “I am _so_ lucky,” he breathed quietly. Grace smiled in response, and lifted her arms invitingly to him. Sarah stretched out on top of Grace, positioning himself with his mouth over her other breast. Sarah and Tedd spent a few slow, sensual minutes playing with Grace’s wonderfully sensitive and responsive nipples, as she gasped and slowly writhed beneath him. Sarah stroked his free hand up and down the length of Tedd’s back, pausing occasionally to cup her ass in his hand and admiring the feel. Sarah realized that his hips were moving reflexively, rubbing his cock along Grace’s thigh, grinding his hip into her crotch.

Sarah lifted his head from Grace’s breast at the same time Tedd did, and they kissed for a long moment. Pulling back, he looked at the two of them for a moment, then said to Tedd, “Do you mind… if Grace goes first?”

Tedd and Grace both chuckled at that. “We talked about it earlier. Since Tedd got to be your first when you were female, we thought it only fair that _I_ get to be your first while you’re male.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Sarah smiled. “That seems fair.” He lifted himself on his arms, and shifted up a little higher on Grace’s body. Grace obligingly lifted her legs and reached down to spread her lips apart. Sarah fumbled with his cock for a moment, before getting positioned properly, then he slid into Grace in a long, slow thrust.

“Oh. My. God,” Sarah gasped. He froze, fully inside of Grace, and stared, wide-eyed, into her face. “How… jeez, I’m… _already_ on the verge of coming again. _God_ , you feel so good.”

“If you don’t want to come, just hold still a minute, sweetie. The intensity should drop a bit.”

Sarah bit his lip, and complied. “So hot. So wet. And _tight_ ,” he panted. “I… didn’t think it would be this different, from this side.”

Grace chuckled, and Sarah was momentarily distracted by the way her breasts jiggled when she did. “I don’t mind if you want to come.”

“Thanks, but…I want to experience more than ten seconds of sex before it’s over.” He panted a little, fighting against the urge to thrust hard into his love. Gradually, the feeling of imminent orgasm faded, and Sarah dared to slowly pull part way out of Grace. “Wow.”

“Wow?”

“Wow.” Sarah hesitantly slid his cock most of the way back in to his love, and paused, panting. “ _Wow.”_

Tedd chuckled. “I think all the blood draining from your brain to your cock has shrunk your vocabulary.”

“Uh-huh,” Sarah agreed absently. “Wow.”

Grace reached down to rub her clit, and Sarah twitched a little as her vaginal muscles squeezed his cock a little more in response. He froze in place again, then lowered his head to kiss her. Sarah felt Grace’s hand between them, rubbing and stroking herself, and she moaned into Sarah’s mouth as they kissed. The sweet intensity of the kiss managed to distract him from his cock a little, and he began to thrust in and out with a little more regularity.

Grace broke away from their kiss, and her head dropped back, eyes closed and her face screwed up with that familiar lovely intensity. “Yesss,” hissed Grace, lifting her hips a little to give him a better angle. The new angle rubbed his cock a different way, and the heightened sensation soon brought him to the edge again. He paused, panting, and stared down at Grace’s beautiful face. “You’re _so_ hot. I just want to explode inside you.”

Grace opened her eyes and smiled. She wrapped her legs around Sarah’s hips, and pulled him close. “Then do it,” she whispered into his ear, with a little nibble on his ear lobe. “Come inside me, lover. Give it all to me. I _want_ you.”

The words were like a spark in his brain, setting off an explosion. Sarah groaned, and he slammed hard into Grace, burying himself as deep in her as he could, his cock pulsing. He thrust in and out of her as hard and fast as he could, filling her with his cum. His orgasm seemed to push Grace to a higher level of excitement too, and she whimpered and gasped, staring into his face as she watched him come.

After a half minute of energetic thrusting, he slowed down, then collapsed on top of Grace, panting.

“Watching you two together never gets old,” said Tedd. Sarah looked over at her, and saw she had her head propped up on one elbow, her other hand gently pinching a nipple as she watched them. “No matter what your bodies.”

Sarah chuckled, and said, “Glad you liked the show. Our _next_ performance will be…” He trailed off and yawned. Then he looked surprised. “Oh. Man. I thought you guys falling asleep after sex when male was just a joke. But…” he fought down another yawn. “Hunh. Weird.” He shook his head and pushed his torso up off of Grace, not wanting to doze off just yet and end the fun.

“There’s a rather fascinating neurochemical reason for that, involving the release of prolactin, among other compounds, during male orgasm, which—” Tedd began, then she caught herself. “Which I’m sure you’ll be thrilled to hear about, _later_.” Sarah and Grace laughed, and Sarah sat up, his cock slipping out of Grace as he did so. He looked down at Grace, and smiled. “You are _so_ beautiful, my love.”

“As are you,” Grace replied, smiling back.

Sarah reached down between Grace’s legs and slid a finger between her sopping wet lips, ending with a little circle around her clit. “Ready for a grand finale?” he asked with a smile. Grace rarely climaxed just through intercourse. Sarah or Tedd usually brought her to orgasm orally, or by hand, afterwards.

Grace made a soft purring noise, and said, “I actually already came, that time. Watching you come inside me for the first time was extra exciting.”

“For me, too,” Sarah said. He slipped two fingers between her swollen labia, a little amazed at how wet she was, how much cum he’d left inside her.

Grace sucked in a sharp breath, then gave a slow sultry smile. “Not that I’d say ‘no’ to seconds.”

Sarah and Tedd both grinned at that. Tedd leaned forward and kissed her, as Sarah slid down between her legs, pausing to kiss a lovely hard nipple on the way.

Sarah had initially found it a little odd that none of Grace’s human forms had pubic hair, but he had come to appreciate the slippery feeling of her smooth wet labia, slick with their combined sexual juices. He paused for a moment between her legs, blew a cooling breath across her heated pussy, and admired the view. Sarah had always thought Grace’s pussy was lovely, but the increased male response to visual stimuli seemed to be at work here, too, and the convoluted folds of her labia looked even more beautiful than ever.

 _Or maybe I just enjoy the view of a pussy I’ve just fucked so well,_ he thought, with a smug little grin. Her inner lips were swollen and plump, a darker brown than her skin, with her dark pink clit peeking out of its hood at the top of her cleft.

Sarah gently spread Grace’s inner lips open, to reveal the bright pink inner core of her cunt. He loved the contrast of the pink and brown, so sexy and hot, made more so by the dribble of contrasting white, his own cum dripping out of her. He leaned forward and gave her a gentle lick, starting slow, and she twitched in response. Glancing up, he saw Tedd and Grace were still kissing, and Tedd was gently caressing one breast. Sarah took another longer lick, and thrust his tongue deeper inside her.

 _Eh. I may not taste as good as they do, but… it’s not terrible,_ Sarah decided, swallowing a small mouthful of his own cum. _Especially when mixed with essence of Grace._ He slid a couple of fingers into her cunt, palm up, and curled them up against her g-spot as he licked a little more aggressively at her clit. Grace’s thighs tensed, and lifted her ass a little off the floor in response. Sarah was a little surprised at how quickly she was responding; it usually took several minutes for her to reach that level. He slid another finger into her, and continued licking, thrilling to the feel of her muscles quivering, and the sound of her voice, as he did. She was whimpering a gentle “Yes, yes, _yes_ , oh, my loves, yes.” Sarah looked up to see Tedd was sucking on one nipple while gently pinching the other. He flexed his fingers a little more forcefully inside her as he teased her clit with his tongue.

Sarah was caught only slightly off-guard as Grace came, her thighs clamping down on his hand and jaw as she lifted her ass completely off the floor, arching her back. She uttered a guttural yowl that was more animal than human as she came, then she collapsed back to the ground, relaxing her thighs.

Sarah continued to slowly lick Grace’s clit, with increasingly gentler strokes, then he slowly slipped his fingers out of her and sat up. Grace was panting and covered with a thin sheen of sweat. Sarah stretched out alongside her, with Tedd on her other side.

After a few minutes of recovery, Grace opened her eyes and smiled. “To quote Sarah: wow.” Sarah and Tedd laughed. She turned her head towards Tedd and kissed her gently. “But, once again, we’ve neglected you, you poor thing.” Tedd chuckled.

“I always thoroughly enjoy watching my lovely ladies. Er, my loves,” she corrected her usual phrase. “But there is still one thing I promised Sarah long ago that we have yet to do.”

“Hunh?” Sarah looked blankly at Tedd, having not a clue as to what she was talking about.

“I said I’d show him how it felt to get his cock sucked.”

Sarah gave a breathless little laugh. “You may have to wait a little while for that.” Sarah knew that Tedd or Grace rarely came more than one or two times a session when male, and he didn’t expect he’d be any different.

Tedd gave him a salacious grin. “Oh, ye of little faith. It’s your first time male. I’m confident you have more than just a couple of orgasms in you.”

Sarah shook his head, then wiggled his damp, limp cock. The motion was new and intriguing, so he repeated it, then looked back up at Tedd again with a grin. “Sure doesn’t feel that way right now.”

“Remember what we said about male response to visual stimuli?”

Sarah chuckled. “It’s been driven home to me a few times today, yeah.”

Tedd smiled. “Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.” She began kissing Grace, while fondling her breasts. Grace responded by rolling over, pushing Tedd onto her back, and straddling her.

Sarah smiled and leaned against the couch, his relaxed, post-orgasmic lethargy giving a lovely warmth and looseness to his muscles. Much like Tedd, he enjoyed watching his lovers making love with each other. Tedd, when female, was in some ways the opposite of Grace. Grace was quickly aroused, but slow to climax; Tedd was slow to arouse, but once aroused, she was a multi-orgasmic firecracker. Which was part of why Tedd was content with watching Sarah and Grace at first, when she was female; it allowed her time to "warm up."

 _They are so beautiful. How did I get so lucky?_ Sarah thought to himself, as he watched the two kiss and caress each other. Sarah the artist especially loved the color contrasts, of Grace’s dark brown skin against Tedd’s paler Asian complexion. Grace sucked on one of Tedd’s nipples, while slipping a couple of fingers into her pussy, and Sarah shuddered in sympathetic response to Tedd’s resulting moans.

 _God, that’s hot._ Almost absent-mindedly, Sarah fondled his cock in response to the show in front of him. It felt a little sore, but in a pleasant way, as it slowly, very slowly, started to swell again.

 _I guess Tedd was right_ , Sarah thought bemusedly. Grace was between Tedd’s legs, lapping at her clit while slipping three fingers rapidly in and out of her cunt. Sarah stretched out to avail himself of Tedd’s breasts. He sucked one small nipple into his mouth, and pinched the other, and Tedd gasped at the extra sensations. In less than five minutes, Sarah and Grace brought Tedd to two, maybe three orgasms.

After the last, Tedd pushed Grace’s head away from her crotch, and gasped, “Time out, time out.” Grace obligingly lifted her head, with one final lazy lick at Tedd’s clit, and slipped her sopping wet fingers out of her cunt. Sarah likewise gave Tedd’s nipple a gentle lick, then propped his head up on his elbow to watch Tedd’s beautiful face as she slowly came down from her orgasmic high. Sarah leaned over and kissed Tedd gently on her cheek. Tedd responded by turning her head and kissing Sarah with a little more intensity.

“That was fun,” said Grace.

“And how,” Sarah agreed.

Tedd laughed a little breathlessly. “No arguments here.”

Grace looked over at Sarah, and grinned. “It looks like you enjoyed the show, too.” Sarah glanceddown at his crotch, and realized he was fully erect again.

“What’s not to like?” he asked. “My lovely ladies,” he said with a grin, using Tedd’s own phrase on her.

Tedd chuckled in appreciation. “My sexy man,” she replied, and it took Sarah a moment to realize that she meant him.

 _Right, doofus, who else would she be talking about right now?_ Sarah shook his head and smiled. It still felt odd to consider himself male.

“So. About that promise,” Tedd began.

“Hmm?”

“I want to suck your cock.”

“ _Oh._ ” Sarah gulped. It was amazing how much hotter that phrase was when one was male. When one had a cock to _be_ sucked.

Grace laughed at Sarah’s reaction. “I wouldn’t turn her down, if I were you,” she said teasingly. “She’s really quite good at it.”

“Why, thank you, dear.”

Sarah rolled over onto his back and shook his head. “I wouldn’t _dream_ of turning you down.” He pulled a couple of cushions off the couch to prop up his upper body, the better to see the action.

Tedd crawled towards Sarah, a predatory gleam in her eye as she settled down between his legs. “Do you remember the first time you sucked me?”

“Oh, yes. I’m not likely to forget that day.”

“Hmmm. As I recall, you did something like _this_.” Tedd reached out with her tongue, and gave Sarah’s cock a gentle lick with the tip of her tongue. Sarah twitched at the sensation, and his cock likewise jumped in response. Tedd gave him a couple more tiny licks.

“And then this…” Tedd stuck her tongue out further and slowly licked along the whole length of his cock, creating a wave of erotic sensation that made Sarah moan softly. After several more licks, she said, “And then this,” and she slipped the head of Sarah’s cock into her mouth.

Sarah was very glad he’d already come twice that day, for otherwise he was sure the sensation would have caused him to come immediately in Tedd’s mouth. As it was, he gasped and panted, staring at Tedd. She looked up at him, eyes wide and innocent, as she slowly slid Sarah’s cock deeper into her mouth.

“God, you look so hot with my cock in your mouth,” Sarah gasped.

Tedd giggled, producing a new sensation for Sarah, and pulled Sarah out of her mouth. “Yes, I’m pretty sure that that’s what I said next, too.” She sucked Sarah back into her mouth, and gently fondled his balls as she did. Sarah watched, with growing arousal, as Tedd’s head bobbed up and down on his cock. He heard a soft moan harmonizing with his own, and looked over to see Grace watching, eyes glued to Tedd’s mouth, with a hand buried between her legs.

Tedd slipped Sarah’s cock out of his mouth again, and murmured, “Grace flavored Sarah cock. Yummy!” It was an old joke among the triad, but it was the first time it had been used in that particular combination. Sarah laughed a little through his arousal.

Tedd bent lower and licked his balls, and Sarah shuddered again. It was not as electrically erotic as sucking on his cock, but it was undeniably hot. Tedd raised her head and slipped Sarah’s cock into her mouth again, bobbed her head up and down a few times, then took a deep breath, and slid the entire length of Sarah’s cock down her throat.

“ _Jesus!”_ Sarah convulsed a little at both the sight and the sensation, once again glad he’d come a couple of times already. Tedd’s eyes rolled up to peer at Sarah’s face, the corners of her eyes crinkling in a smug smile. For a split second, seeing Tedd’s face in his crotch with no cock visible, it looked just like when Tedd went down on her in her regular body. Then Tedd slowly pulled her mouth up off of Sarah’s cock, and the illusion passed. Tedd coughed briefly to clear her throat.

“I admit, you didn’t do _that_ the first time you went down on me, but I thought you might like it anyway.”

“Gah. Uh. Yah. Oh, yeah,” Sarah babbled, causing Tedd and Grace to both giggle.

Tedd crawled up the length of Sarah’s body, and straddled him with her pussy slipping along his glistening wet cock. She stared Sarah deep in the eyes, and purred throatily, “I want you in me.”

Sarah, his brain still a little short-circuited from the sensation of Tedd deep-throating him, could only nod.

Tedd lifted herself up a bit, and reached underneath to expertly guide Sarah’s cock into her waiting pussy. Sarah moaned at the sensation, and the heavenly vision of Tedd astride him. Tedd always liked having Sarah or Grace ride him this way when he was male, and now Sarah could see why. Not only did it feel wonderful, but the view was incomparable. He could see almost all of Tedd, from head to crotch, and also watch his cock sliding in and out of Tedd, which was its own kind of erotic thrill. Her breasts bounced enticingly as she thrust up and down on Sarah’s cock, and Sarah reached up and cupped them in his hands, pinching the nipples. Tedd sucked in a sharp breath.

“You… are so… fucking… hot,” Tedd gasped between strokes.

“No, that’s you,” Sarah argued with a smile.

“It’s both of you,” Grace said. Sarah looked over to see Grace watching them, one hand gently kneading one of her breasts, the other slowly caressing her clit. She didn’t seem to be striving for an orgasm, but was just enjoying the sensations along with the show.

Tedd reached down to stroke her own clit as she rode Sarah’s cock, and she bit her lips and closed her eyes as she thrust harder and faster against him. Sarah instinctively bucked his hips up to meet Tedd’s downward strokes, driving his cock even deeper into her. Tedd shuddered, her head rolling back as she gasped, and keened, and came.

Tedd collapsed forward onto Sarah’s chest, gasping and shuddering a little. She was making small noises which Sarah only gradually recognized as a litany of “Oh, yes yes yes yes _yes_ …”

Sarah wrapped his arms around Tedd, holding her close as she shuddered and calmed, murmuring, “Oh, my love,” to her as she came down a little.

Sarah took advantage of his larger size and greater strength to roll the two of them over. Tedd gave a little yelp of surprise, but giggled as she ended up under Sarah, still attached to his cock. Sarah slid one hand under Tedd’s ass, recalling that Tedd liked to do that when making love in this position, and was delighted to find that it allowed him to angle her up a little, and pull himself deeper into her.

Tedd and Sarah were nose-to-nose, and Tedd had a wicked little gleam in her eyes as she said, “Now it’s _my_ turn, my love.” She lifted and spread her legs, resting her ankles on Sarah’s shoulders. “Fuck me. Hard. And don’t stop.”

“Yes ma’am,” Sarah said, eliciting a giggle from both women. He shifted his hands to either side of Tedd’s head, holding himself up.

He slowly pulled his cock almost completely out of Tedd, then slid it back in. He did that once, twice, three times, looking down and enjoying the view of his cock disappearing into his lover. Tedd growled, “Perhaps you missed the part about fucking me _hard?”_

Sarah grinned. “Just getting the lay of the land.” Then he thrust in hard and fast, eliciting a shocked gasp, and he paused. “Like that?”

Tedd, wide-eyed, nodded. “Yessss…”

Now Sarah was really glad he had already come two times this evening. He felt like he could give Tedd what she wanted, without feeling like he was going to instantly come. Eyes locked on Tedd’s eyes, he gradually picked up speed, and thrust energetically into her, thrilling in the feel of their bodies slapping together. Tedd seemed to be struggling to keep her gaze locked with Sarah’s, but her eyes kept drifting shut, and eventually she gave up the effort. Her head lolled back and she panted, and began to come again. Sarah felt his cock grow harder in response, and he picked up his pace still more.

Tedd twitched and moaned, and after a few moments Sarah realized that what Tedd was moaning was a low chant of “fuck me fuck me fuck me…” Sarah happily obliged, driving home with greater force, which pushed Tedd into another orgasm, twitching and whimpering.

The stimulation and intensity of their fucking was finally too much for Sarah, and he slammed his cock deep with a roar and froze, his cock feeling like it was spewing liquid fire into Tedd. He gasped and moaned, Tedd’s own cries harmonizing with his in a moment of glorious ecstasy. Then he shuddered, and gradually melted down onto Tedd, his body feeling loose and exhausted.

Sarah opened his eyes slowly, and looked down at Tedd as she slipped her heels off of his shoulders. They lay there a moment together, panting, then Sarah started to laugh quietly.

“Was that hard enough for you, my love?”

Tedd snorted, and licked at Sarah’s neck, eliciting a final little shudder from him. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so.” Tedd rocked a little to the side, and in response Sarah rolled the two of them over, so they were lying side-by-side. The movement caused Sarah’s softening cock to slip out of Tedd, and she sighed in response.

“Thank you, sweetie,” Tedd said. “That was… _intense_.”

“Oh, yes,” Sarah chuckled.

Tedd reached down between her legs and gently ran a hand over her sex. She winced. “That was good, but… maybe not as a regular thing.”

Sarah frowned, concerned. “Did I hurt you?”

“Eh…” Tedd looked ambivalent. “Yeah, but no more so than I asked you to.”

“Oh.” Sarah thought back to when Grace was fucking her with his ever-expanding cock, and gave a small smile. “I think I know what you mean. Sometimes, riding that edge of pain, it’s…” He blushed and hesitated, unsure how to finish.

“Intense,” Tedd said simply.

“Yeah. That.”

“If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to shift back, now. That should take care of some of my aches.”

“All right.” Sarah looked at Tedd, curious as always to watch the transformation as it occurred.

Tedd hesitated, then asked, “Do you want to move away a little bit?”

“Uh, no. Unless you need me to for some reason?” Sarah couldn’t think why—both Grace and Tedd had shifted forms while being held in Sarah’s arms before.

“No, it’s just—never mind.” Tedd closed her eyes, and shimmered briefly. Sarah felt a slight shiver of energy where he was touching Tedd, almost like a prickle of static electricity. Tedd’s female form was so close to his male form that the differences were minimal. The obvious change in breasts and genitals, of course; his hair was shorter, and hips a bit narrower, but other than that he looked remarkably similar.

Sarah kissed him when he was done. “Feel better?”

Tedd blinked, and stretched. “Yeah.”

Grace moved in behind Tedd, and snuggled into him, saying, “That was quite the show.”

Sarah laughed, then yawned. “Dang! This sleepy male orgasm thing is weird. I think I want to shift back too.” He disentangled himself from Tedd and Grace and stood up. Tedd slowly got up too, groaning a little, to get the TF gun, and Grace also stood.

“Sweetie? Before you shift back to your female body, do you mind if I show you something?” Grace asked.

Sarah looked down at Grace, and smiled. “I’m happy to see anything you have to show me, love.”

Grace licked her lips and shot Tedd a quick glance, a little nervous gesture that puzzled Sarah. _What on Earth does she want to show me?_

Grace shut her eyes and stood still a moment, then her body shimmered with the usual blur of magical energy that accompanied a shape shift. A moment later, she looked like a beautiful young blonde woman, with a slim but sexy body. Sarah’s gaze was initially arrested by her sweet little breasts, deliciously capped by large pink areolae. His eyes moved up to her face when Grace opened her eyes, and smiled shyly up at Sarah. “You like?” she asked in a voice that was almost familiar.

It took Sarah almost a full second to recognize the form as his own. Her own.

“Oh.” Sarah had seen Grace using her form a couple of times before, but she hadn’t been nude. And Sarah certainly hadn’t been male. “That’s… uh…” Sarah swallowed. _Is it masturbatory to get turned on by myself?_ he wondered absently. “You must have… tweaked that form a little. Polished it. Refined it.” Grace was shaking her head before Sarah even completed the sentence.

“This is a simple clone-form, taken directly from a scan of you.”

Sarah blinked rapidly a few times, surprised at the tears forming in his eyes, and shook his head in denial. “Can’t be,” he whispered. “You’re too… beautiful.” He closed his eyes and wrapped his arms across his chest, head bowed. A moment later, he felt Tedd pressed up against his back, arms around his waist, hugging him from behind.

“Sarah-my-love, open your eyes,” he asked quietly. “See what we see.”

Sarah shook his head, refusing at first, but after taking a calming breath, he opened his eyesand lifted his head to look at Grace again.

She was beautiful. Well, of course she was, Grace was always beautiful to Sarah, no matter what her form. But—this time her form was Sarah’s form. Sarah let his gaze travel over Grace’s body the same way he’d visually devoured Tedd and Grace just after shifting to male. All the same visual delight was there: the arch of her neck, the warmth of her smile, the curve of her breasts, the flare of her hips, the shape of her legs. All of her was a delight to look upon. Sarah shook his head slowly. “That’s not… It’s not…”

“It’s you, sweetie,” Grace said, in Sarah’s own voice. She stepped forward and hugged Sarah, sandwiching him between herself and Tedd. “It’s always you, my love.”

Sarah bent his head and rested it on top of Grace’s head, and nodded mutely. “Thank you,” he whispered a few moments later, as he wrapped his arms around her. The triad stood that way for another minute, before Sarah let loose of Grace, and wiped at his eyes.

“All right. You got me. Maybe I _am_ … beautiful.”

“ _Maybe_?” Tedd said indignantly.

“Hush, sweetie, it’s a step in the right direction,” said Grace. Sarah gave a shaky little laugh.

“But would you mind shifting to some other form before I revert?” he asked Grace. “I’m not sure I’m ready to share the room with myself just yet. At least not while naked.”

Grace chuckled, and her form blurred once again, reverting to her natural half-human squirrel form. She hugged Sarah again, and Sarah, as always, enjoyed the feeling of her soft fur all along the length of his body. Their height differential was even greater with Sarah in his male form, and Grace’s head rested on his chest, her furry antennae brushing his cheeks.

Sarah let go of Grace, and turned to the desk where the TF gun lay waiting. “All right. Can I get back to being me, now?”

Tedd just smiled, and lifted the gun. He checked and double-checked the settings on the side display panel, then asked, “Ready?”

“Oh, yeah.” Sarah took a steadying breath as Tedd lifted the gun and fired at him.

There was the usual flash, and moment of slight vertigo, then Sarah looked down at her natural body. She blew out her breath in relief. Some small back corner of her mind finally relaxed at being in her natural form again. She ran her hands down the front of her body, reassured by the familiar feeling of her breasts, and the lack of an aching cock between her legs.

“Thanks, Tedd,” she said, and she went over to the couch to sit down. She was pleased that her post-orgasmic relaxation wasn’t nearly as sleepy as it had been a minute ago. They arranged themselves on the couch with Tedd and Sarah sitting up, and Grace between them, lying down, with her head in Tedd’s lap and her legs draped across Sarah’s legs. Sarah grabbed her t-shirt from the end of the couch and pulled it on for warmth, then pulled a throw blanket over them, arranging it to leave Grace’s face exposed.

“So, sweetie. How was being male? Was it good for you too?” Grace asked.

Sarah chuckled. “Yeah. It was pretty good, by and large.”

Tedd cocked his head, and shot Sarah an enquiring look. “By and large? Do you mind my asking what parts weren’t so good?”

Sarah hesitated, thinking about the experience. One of her hands absently stroked Grace’s furry legs beneath the throw.

“It was a couple of things. For one, it was weird having to restrain myself from orgasm. As a woman, coming is elusive, something I… I have to _pursue_. I never have to restrain myself, hold back from coming. But when I was male, it was kinda the opposite problem. It seemed like if I wanted to last for more than ten seconds, I had to keep pulling myself back from the brink.”

“Part of that was just the newness of the situation. I think everything feels more intense just from the novelty of it all,” Tedd observed. “With time, as you get used to it, you won’t have that problem quite so much.”

Sarah shrugged. “Yeah. I guess.”

Grace arched an eyebrow at her lackluster response. “It’s not something you want to do again?”

Sarah looked pensive. “It’s… I’m glad I did it. And I’ll do it again, someday, definitely. But, really—the second thing that was weird about it was—I’m not gender-fluid. I’m female. And pretty happy that way. It’s nice to see—to _feel_ —how the other half lives. And loves. But, it just felt… a little surreal at times. Slightly disconnected from reality. There was a term Sam used, when talking about how he felt having to live in a female body: gender dysphoria. I think _because_ I’m not gender-fluid, being in a man’s body was disconcerting.”

“I feel that way sometimes when I’m out in public, and can’t shift to a female form when I want to,” Tedd said. “But it’s not a really _strong_ feeling, because I know in the back of my mind that I _can_ shift, eventually, just not at that moment.”

“So being male isn’t something you feel the need to do again anytime soon?” Grace asked Sarah.

“Yeah.” She grinned. “Don’t get me wrong, it _was_ fun. Lots of fun. It was nice to get my… uh, my cock sucked. Really, really nice. And now I have a better sense of what to do with you guys when I’m on the other side. And I loved the chance to be inside you both, instead of the other way around, for a change.”

Grace chuckled. “You’ve been inside us before.”

Sarah snorted. “Yeah, but my fingers aren’t quiet as sensitive as a cock. By a long shot.”

“True.”

“Oooh, that could be a fun morph,” Tedd mused. “Increase the nerve density in the fingers…” He trailed off, as Sarah and Grace both started giggling.

“Maybe your motto should be ‘Better Sex through Modern Magic’,” suggested Grace.

Sarah grinned. “Not that regular sex isn’t wonderful enough. I’m not sure you need to go ‘fixing’ a system that isn’t broken.”

Tedd shrugged and smiled. “Maybe. I was just brainstorming. Free-associating.”

“Do you think being bi made the transition to male any easier?” asked Grace curiously.

Sarah thought for a moment. “It probably didn’t hurt, but—I’m not sure it helped, either? Yeah, I’m bi. But that just means I like to make love with men and women _as_ a woman. Even when we play with, uh, sex toys, it’s not like I’m imagining I have a penis. It’s just a toy.” Then a connection occurred to her. “I could flip that question back on _you_ —you once said you didn’t care about swapping sexes, but you were primarily straight whichever sex you were. Did being able to shift sexes make lesbian or gay sex easier for you to adjust to?”

Grace also paused for thought. “I think I remember saying that. That was at my birthday party, right?” Sarah nodded. “I think—I think I had a less complete understanding of my own sexuality, at that point. Tedd and I still hadn’t had sex yet, and I’d only ever been attracted to him. I’m not sure ‘straight’ or ‘bi’ or ‘gay’ are labels that can work for me. I’m more… is there a term for a sexuality that doesn’t really _care_ what sex my partner is, or I am?”

“Well, I’m not sure sex researchers have thought about people like us who can change sex at will, yet, but, I think ‘pansexual’ or ‘omnisexual’ might be the best descriptor,” Tedd said.

“Yeah. Something like that,” agreed Grace. “I’m not gender fluid, like you, sweetie. I don’t sometimes feel like I’m in the wrong sex body. Whatever sex the body I’m in at the moment is the sex I am. Period.”

Sarah chuckled and shook her head admiringly. “You, my love, are the champion at just accepting things the way they are.”

Grace shrugged. “Some things just _are_ ; why fight them? Save that energy for the fights that need fighting.”

“Hmm.” Even without the effects of male orgasm to make her sleepy, Sarah felt like she was beginning to drift off. “I hate to say this, but I probably should head home, soon.”

Tedd and Grace made disappointed noises, but they didn’t fight it when Sarah got up and started getting dressed. She glanced at herself in the mirror to make sure she was presentable, and groaned. “Bother. I never cleaned off the mirror. Or, yuck, the floor.”

“Don’t worry, sweetie, I’ll get it,” Grace offered.

Sarah shook her head as she headed to the bathroom for some cleaning supplies. “It’s my cum stains, I should clean them up.” She paused, then laughed. “Yet another in an ever-increasing list of things I never thought I’d say.”

As she wiped down the mirror and dabbed at the carpet as best she could, she mused, “I think I end up adding to that list of ‘things I never thought I’d say’ almost weekly, since I started dating you guys. Maybe even further back, to when I started working with you on research.”

“Well, we specialize in the weird and unusual around here,” Tedd said.

“And the wonderful,” Grace added.

“Like you guys. And triads,” Sarah agreed. “‘I’m in a triad’ is a phrase that literally never crossed my mind before spring break.” She tossed the paper towels into the trash, and stood up. She smiled fondly at her lovers. “But, you know what? I’m glad it did.”

Tedd and Grace gathered her into their usual three-way hug, and they spent a few more minutes kissing good-bye.

“Love you, Sarah.”

“I love you too.”

“I love you. Good night.”

Sarah was halfway up the stairs before she remembered one last thing. “Oh, nuts!”

“What’s wrong?” called Tedd.

“I never _did_ get a chance to try peeing while standing up.”

She was buoyed up the stairs by the sounds of her lovers’ laughter as she headed out into the night.

 

 

 

 

 


	4. Susan

“Okay,” said Susan. “What gives?”

Sarah looked over at Susan as they walked away from Tedd and Grace’s house towards Susan’s car. They’d just finished a Monty Python marathon with most of their extended circle of friends—Elliot and Ashley, and Ellen and Nanase, and Justin and Luke.

“What do you mean? What _what_ gives?” asked Sarah.

“I mean, you and Tedd barely said one word to Nanase all night. And the few times you did, you were blushing, even though there was nothing in the conversation remotely blush-worthy.” She pulled her keys out of their pocket in her purse, then paused, looking at Sarah across the hood of her car. “Nanase looked uncomfortable too. Did you guys have a fight or something?”

“Ah. _That_.” Sarah gestured to the car, and Susan unlocked it. They climbed in and buckled up, but Susan didn’t start the engine.

“Yes, that. What’s up?”

Sarah flopped her head back against the headrest and shut her eyes. “It’s… embarrassing.”

Susan snorted. “Yeah, so I gathered, from your blushes. Are you going to satisfy my curiosity, or would you rather I just shut up about it?”

“Ehhh…” Sarah opened her eyes and turned her head to the side to look at Susan with a half-smile on her face. “Both?”

“Meaning what, exactly?”

“Meaning, I _do_ and I _don’t_ want to talk about it?”

“Oh. One of _those_ conversations.” Susan shook her head and smiled a little. “Seems like we’re having a lot of those, lately.”

“Yeah. This one may take a while. Want to come back to my place for a few?”

Susan glanced at the car’s clock, then shrugged. “What the heck. I’ve got nowhere I need to be in the morning.” She started the engine, checked her mirrors, and pulled out onto the street.

They drove the short distance to Sarah’s house in companionable silence, and Sarah tried to put her thoughts into an order she could explain to Susan.

The kitchen light was on when they got to Sarah’s house, her parents in bed. As they entered the house, Sarah asked, “You want anything to eat or drink?”

“Just water, thanks.” Sarah, out of long habit knowing Susan, grabbed a clean glass from the cupboard and rinsed it in the sink, then dried it and held it wrapped in a paper towel while filling it from the fridge water dispenser.

“Thanks. You know, I can do that for myself,” said Susan, taking the glass from her.

Sarah shrugged as she opened the fridge and looked inside for snacking inspiration. “Yeah, but you always look sort of embarrassed while washing the glass,” she said absently. “I figure the least I can do is spare you that.”

Susan paused with the glass halfway to her mouth, and looked at Sarah, a little wide-eyed. “Oh. Um. Thanks.” She took a small sip, then rubbed the back of her neck with her free hand and stared at the floor. “You know, you don’t need to, uh, cater to my neuroses. If you don’t want to.”

Sarah looked up from the fridge. “What?” She took in Susan’s posture, her face hidden behind a waterfall of black hair. She closed the fridge, empty-handed. “It’s not a big deal, Susan. Really.” Susan shook her head, and Sarah continued, “I didn’t even think about it. It’s just… it’s what I automatically do, when you’re here.”

Susan scoffed, and shook her head again. “That… just makes it all the worse, somehow.”

For what felt like the millionth time in her friendship with Susan, Sarah wished she could just give her a big hug. She had to settle for verbal hugs.

“Sweetie,” she said, the affectionate phrase falling from her lips without thinking, “With all the weird crap you put up with from _me_ , that’s the least I can do for you. Your friendship is worth far more to me than a few washed glasses and paper towels.”

After a long pause, with Sarah looking at Susan anxiously, Susan looked up and said, very quietly, “Thank you.”

Sarah smiled at her, and said, “Of course.” They just looked at each other for another moment, then Sarah decided to go for broke. She spread her arms, but didn’t step any closer to Susan, and asked, “Any chance of a hug?”

Susan just looked at her for another moment, then she put her glass down on the kitchen counter and said, “Oh, what the hell.” She stepped into Sarah’s arms, and wrapped her arms around her.

Sarah didn’t melt into the hug as she might have with any other close friend. She remained fairly stiff, until she felt Susan’s posture loosen and lean into the embrace a little. Then Sarah relaxed and held her a little closer, resting her head on Susan’s shoulder. She enjoyed being enveloped in the taller woman’s arms and the curtain of her long black hair.

Sarah was surprised that Susan didn’t let go of her for almost a full half-minute: a new record. She stepped back, and looked up at her. “Was that okay?” she asked.

Susan nodded mutely, blinking rapidly.

“I think it’s my turn to ask, what’s up? You don’t usually get this emotional over a glass of water.”

Susan gave a short laugh, and picked up her glass. She took another, larger sip, cleared her throat, then said, “It wasn’t the water.”

“Uh, yeah. Joking here, to break the tension. But you knew that. Come on, let’s go to the family room where it’s more comfy.”

They wandered into the family room, and Sarah turned on a floor lamp instead of the brighter overhead lights. She flopped down on one end of the couch, and sat sideways with her back to the armrest, facing Susan, who sat down more carefully at the other end before putting her glass on a coaster on the end table next to the couch.

“So. If it’s not the water that’s got you so emotional, what does?”

Susan sighed, and studied her hands in her lap. “Same old, same old. Tonight… being with all you couples—groups—whatever, it just hammered home my… singular state. Everyone there except me has a partner. Or two. Even Justin, finally.” She shrugged. “Me? I’ve got a head full of neuroses for company. Which keep me from even _trying_ to date.”

“Ah. Yeah, I thought it might be something like that. I’m sorry if we were too, um, demonstrative or anything.”

Susan shook her head. “You’re weren’t. For a room full of horny teenagers, you all were remarkably restrained.”

“Well… part of _that_ was being uncomfortable around Nanase and Ellen.”

“Yeah.” Susan looked up at Sarah. “So, what’s up with that?”

Sarah decided to allow the change in conversational topic, in part because she really didn’t have anything new to say to Susan about her "singular state." Reassuring her once again that she’d surely find somebody, someday, would just sound hollow at this point.

She blew out a breath, and grimaced. “Well… it started with Nanase’s fairy doll.”

“What about it?” prompted Susan, when Sarah paused.

Sarah took a deep breath. She’d rehearsed this in her head a half-dozen times on the drive home. She tried to get it all out, and over with, as quickly as she could.

“A couple weeks ago, Nanase’s fairy doll popped in to visit us at an… awkward moment. A, uh, climactic moment, you might say. Grace… and to be fair, me too… got a bit, uh, turned on, by knowing we turned her on.”

Susan blinked. “That… raises more questions than it answers.”

Sarah sighed. “Like?”

“Like, how do you know you turned her on?”

“She accidentally butt-dialed us a little while later, and we heard her talking with Ellen about what she’d seen. In rather, um, glowing terms.”

“Oh.” Susan blushed a little. “So… you and Grace discovered you have, ah, exhibitionistic tendencies?”

“Not exactly. Neither of us got turned on by being _watched_ , exactly. In fact it rather freaked me out at first. It was knowing that we’d turned _her_ on that affected us.”

“That sounds like splitting hairs. So you got turned on by turning her on?”

“More Grace than me, really.”

Susan just arched an eyebrow at her, but said nothing. Sarah sighed.

“Well. A _little_ bit more.”

Susan shook her head, and muttered under her breath, “How frakking ironic.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” She looked to the side for a moment, then turned back to Sarah. “So, tonight was the first time you’ve seen them since then?”

“Well, no, actually; we went out to a comedy club with them the following night. That being what Nanase had popped in to ask us about, initially.”

Susan laughed. “And how did _that_ go?”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “You thought _tonight_ was awkward?”

“That good, huh?”

“Grace and Ellen were fine; they helped the group maintain a facade of pseudo-normalcy. But Nanase, Tedd, and I were all a little… quiet.” She sighed.

“If things are so awkward, why did you invite them over tonight?”

Sarah shrugged. “Partly, it just seemed too weird to invite Elliot but not Ellen. Also, Grace thinks Tedd and I should spend more time with them to help us get over it.”

“Grace is comfortable with the situation?”

“Grace is… Grace. My sweetie is the ultimate champion at accepting things as they are, without judgement or concern. Nanase saw us having sex? Oh well, not the end of the world. Grace got turned on by turning _them_ on? After the initial shock of realizing it wore off, she just accepted that that’s the way she is, and moved on.” Sarah shook her head, smiling. “I wish I had _half_ of her ability to just go with the flow.”

“Me too,” admitted Susan.

“Yeah, wouldn’t it be nice?”

“So… earlier. You said you did and you didn’t want to talk about this. Was there, rather _is_ there, something you wanted to discuss about what happened?”

“Oh. Yeah. Well…” Sarah tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling, avoiding Susan’s gaze. She wondered if she’d even be considering discussing this with Susan if the hour wasn’t so late, and she was a little bit tired and spacey. Her defenses low. “Something Tedd said. When Grace… we… admitted to getting a little turned on. Grace said that it was mostly a turn-on because it was a _friend_ watching us, not a stranger. Then Tedd said, jokingly, ‘Well, now I’ve got a great idea for Grace’s _next_ birthday party.’”

Susan barked out a short startled laugh, then covered her mouth. Sarah glanced at her, and saw Susan’s eyes were still smiling above her hand. She was relieved at that; she had been afraid of what Susan’s reaction to that remark might be.

Susan uncovered her mouth, cleared her throat, and said, “That would be a _very_ different kind of party.” Her mouth kept twitching, as if fighting down a smile.

“Oh, yeah. Not something to do, in real life. But it, ah, makes for some interesting fantasies.”

Susan got a faraway look for a moment, and blushed. Sarah was pretty sure Susan was picturing events similar to the ones she herself had imagined. Or at least similar in nature, if not exact details.

“You know…” Susan began hesitantly. She stared down at her hands, and began massaging the base of one thumb with the other thumb.

“What?” prompted Sarah, after a few moments of silence. Susan switched hands and continued rubbing.

“If you ever _wanted_. An audience. Or something.” Susan said awkwardly. Then she stopped, apparently at the limit of what she could comfortably say.

Sarah’s eyebrows shot up, and she sat up from her sprawl at the end of the couch. “Are you… _volunteering?”_ she asked cautiously.

“Ye—no. Uh. Kinda? No.” She took a deep breath, and when she exhaled, she let her rigid posture relax. She slumped back against the couch, rested one elbow on the arm of the couch, and rubbed her face with that hand. After a moment, she looked over at Sarah and gave her a nervous smile. “No, never mind, it was a stupid idea.”

Sarah shook her head. “Actually… in the interest of honesty and open communication,” she began, then stopped and chuckled to herself.

Susan looked puzzled. “What’s so funny about that?”

Sarah smiled. “Nothing, it’s—that’s just a phrase we use a lot. Probably me, more so than Tedd or Grace. It’s an easy, formulaic way to bring something up that’s a bit awkward or embarrassing.”

“Okay. So, what’s _your_ embarrassing thought?” Susan asked.

“After Tedd made that crack about Grace’s birthday party, we discussed some… ideas. Fantasies. About where that might go.” She looked over at Susan. “Mostly just blue-sky, really out there ideas, that are sexy to think about, but would never work in reality. But…” She bit her lip.

“In the interest of honesty and open communication?” Susan prompted.

Sarah laughed. “You catch on quick. Um. One of the fantasies I had was actually _showing_ you what sex is like. Not just making a lousy job of describing it.”

“I don’t think you did that badly. Or, well, at least until I have something real to compare it to.”

“Yeah. So, when you made that offer… it just reminded me of that.”

“Ah.” Susan paused for a long moment, staring at the floor, then she looked back at Sarah. “Do you remember when Catalina, in an attempt to convince people that Elliot wasn’t gay, tackled and kissed him?”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “You think I’m ever going to forget _that?”_

“Oh. Yeah. Silly question, sorry.”

“So, what about it?”

“Well, I… my reaction to seeing that…”

“Yes?” Sarah prompted, when Susan seemed stuck. She wondered how this connected to their conversation about exhibitionism.

“It kinda. Um. Turnedmeon,” Susan blurted.

“It what? Oh. Turned you on.” Sarah blinked, then shrugged. “Okay. They’re both sexy enough. That seems reasonable.”

Susan threw up her hands. “Why does everyone have that response?” She flopped her head backwards on the couch and stared at the ceiling.

“Everyone?”

“Well, you and Justin.”

“ _Everyone_.”

“All right, all right, I overstated it a bit. Why do you and Justin have that response?”

Sarah considered this for a moment. “Because it’s a reasonable response?”

Susan sighed, and shook her head. “ _Reasonable_? Getting turned on watching the guy I had a crush on get kissed by the girl I, I, kinda wished I was bi enough to go on a date with, is _reasonable_?”

Sarah had never heard Susan describe Catalina in those terms before, but she filed that one away as background information, for later.

“Yes?” Sarah said.

Susan stared at her, an exasperated look on her face.

“ _Right._ Well. Anyway, reasonable or not. I discovered that I… like to watch.”

Sarah finally saw how this apparent digression tied in to the rest of the preceding conversation. “Ah. Well, given how you feel about touching people, that also seems… reasonable.”

Susan glowered at her. “What does _reason_ have to do with _any_ of this?” Then she shook her head. “Never mind.” She paused, chewing on her lower lip. Some intuition told Sarah that Susan wasn’t quite done yet, so she held her peace, waiting for Susan to get her thoughts in order.

“So I like to watch. And, as it turns out, Little Suze does too… maybe even more so.”

“ _More_ so? Wait, are you saying your fairy doll has desires separate from yours? I thought you claimed she _was_ you. An extension of you.”

“Not separate. But… sometimes it acts like my subconscious personified. Or perhaps it might be more accurate to say it sometimes acts like my id.”

“Id?” Sarah frowned in thought.

“As in id, ego, and superego? Freudian psychology?”

“Oh, right.” Sarah nodded. “Which one is the id? I always mix them up.”

“Basic instinctual desires, pleasure-seeking unhindered by morality or consequences.”

“Sounds like a pretty saucy fairy doll.”

Susan gave a dry laugh. “It is that.”

“So, what does Suze do?”

“Well… this only happened the once. Then I told Suze that if it happened again, I’d dismantle and get rid of _all_ my fairy dolls. Apparently I meant it, since it hasn’t done it again since then.”

“Okay. ‘It’ what?”

Susan started to bend her head forward, as if to hide behind her veil of hair, then she seemed to catch herself, and she sat up a little straighter. Face flushing a little, she brushed her hair back behind her ear and looked away from Sarah. “One evening, Suze popped into my bedroom without my consciously summoning it, just as I was starting… uh, starting to masturbate.” She smiled a little. “At first, it seemed like it was trying to help, to get me into the mood, but really, it was just annoying. Then it vanished. Not unsummoned, it teleported away to somewhere else.” She paused and took a deep breath.

“Where did she go?”

“At this time, I could only use my fairy dolls to remotely view things, see things through their eyes. So I tried to see what Suze was seeing. Somehow…” Susan paused, and frowned.

“Somehow what?”

“Huh. It just occurred to me. I don’t know how it did this. How it found…” Susan paused, then shook her head. “Irrelevant. Anyway, Little Suze had found a couple who were making love, and was hiding and watching them. It resisted me when I tried to summon it back to me, and when I tried to exert a stronger magical will to force the issue, well, that was the first time I actually ended up _inhabiting_ a fairy doll body.”

“Ah. So, then it became _you_ who was hiding and watching this couple.”

“Yeah.” Susan’s face was flaming red now. She glanced nervously at Sarah, then relaxed a little. “I… didn’t pull Little Suze back home until they were, ah, sufficiently noisy to cover the sound of the doll teleporting out.”

Sarah smiled a little. “And in the meantime, you got a nice show.”

“Yeah.”

“Who was this couple? Were they strangers, or someone I know?”

There was a long pause, as Susan stared off into the distance, then she shook her head. “I’d rather not say.”

Sarah’s mind began to race, as she worked her way though the various sexually active couples she and Susan knew. She assumed that if it had been some random couple that they didn’t know, Susan would have simply said so. Theoretically, it could be someone Susan knew that Sarah didn’t, but their friendship circles overlapped pretty tightly. She knocked Ellen and Nanase off the list of possibilities, since Susan had no interest in other women. Ditto Cat and Rhoda. Would Justin and Luke—no, this event had to have been before they met, if it was the first time Susan inhabited a fairy doll body, and likewise it would have been before their triad formed. Which left Ashley and Elliot, or Grace and Tedd.

Unless… “Ah… it wasn’t someone’s _parents_ , was it?”

“Ew! No!” Susan shuddered.

“Okay. Which leaves us with… Elliot and Ashley. Since I’m pretty sure Grace could hear or smell your fairy doll’s presence, and Tedd would have had a good chance of sensing the magic involved.”

Susan sighed, and gave her a flat stare. “I neither confirm nor deny.”

Sarah opened her mouth to protest, then thought better of it. Did she _really_ want to know more intimate details about Elliot and Ashley’s love life? No. Not at all.

“Right. So, nameless couple, you escaped without notice.”

“I hope. Assume. It’s not like it’s something I can ask about.”

“Well, if you were _seen_ , anyone who knows you would have recognized Little Suze.”

“Yeah. Which is why I’m basically positive I wasn’t seen. It’s just the little popping noise that comes with teleporting away that I can’t be sure about.” She sighed. “In any event, it was a one-time occurrence, and it will _stay_ that way, or I’ll get rid of all my dolls.”

“So… a one time thing. But you made it sound as if Little Suze is, ah, participating in your solo love life on a regular basis. Not just this event.”

“Yeah. I don’t know if it’s because it’s not my real body, or if my… neuroses have a biochemical basis that isn’t present when I’m inhabiting the fairy doll, or if it’s just that it’s sufficiently different from my real body as to feel a bit, well, unreal. And so not threatening. Or maybe it’s just a matter of scale, being so much smaller just feels less dangerous, less threatening.”

Sarah tried to follow this, waiting once more for Susan to explain what "it" was.

Susan seemed to realize she was avoiding the point, and she took a deep breath. “What I’m trying to say is… I have a much stronger libido when in fairy doll form.”

“Oh.” Sarah absorbed this for a moment. “So, have you started, ah, playing with the other dolls?” A mental image of the Little Suze fairy doll having sex with Little Teddy, the Tedd-shaped fairy doll, flashed through her mind. She was a little surprised at how erotic she found the notion.

“No!” Susan’s blush deepened. “Well, not yet,” she conceded quietly. “I’m not… I don’t feel _quite_ ready for that. Not yet.”

“So…” Sarah began hesitantly, working it out. “All of your… experiences… in doll form are just solo play? Masturbation?”

“Yah. But… lots of it.”

“Lots? Meaning, what?”

Susan pulled her feet up on the couch, and hugged her knees, looking both embarrassed and miserable. “Uh… sometimes for an hour… or more… at a time.”

“Huh.” Sarah tried to find something useful to say. Heaven knew she’d indulged in a few masturbation marathons herself, now and then, riding the crest from orgasm to orgasm over the course of an hour or more. But it wasn’t something she engaged in regularly. Like once a year or so, at most. Partly that was a matter of libido—one or two orgasms was usually enough to sate her, when playing alone—and partly a matter of time—having a couple of hours of privacy during the daytime, when she was awake enough to not just drift off to sleep after her first climax.

But Susan seemed to be implying that such marathons were a much more common thing, for her. Or at least, for her in miniature.

“So… I take it you never masturbate quite so much in your, uh, in your own body?”

Susan just shook her head, her head bent forward to hide her face behind a curtain of black hair. “Never like that. Usually, it’s just one and done. My… real body… isn’t multi-orgasmic.”

“Okay… I’m not sure what the problem is here, unless you’re polishing the pink pearl so much that you’re missing work or homework or something. You _do_ know you’re not going to go blind, or grow hairy palms or anything, right?”

Susan snorted, and looked up at Sarah. “Very funny.” She shook her head. “‘Polishing the pink pearl’?”

“My cousin Ruthie used that phrase,” said Sarah absently. “I like it. But, seriously, unless you’re hurting yourself in some way, what’s the issue?” She smiled. “One of the things I’ve learned, making love with Tedd and Grace, is that there is very little that you can do _wrong_ with sex, as long as you’re respectful of other people, and don’t harm anyone. Yourself included.”

“Respect.” Susan frowned a moment. “Consent.”

“Yeah, that’s part of it.”

“I didn’t get consent from that couple I watched.”

“True. And you’ve sworn to never do it again. And I know you—you’re strong-willed enough to actually stick to that. So, while you may not have had their consent, you didn’t hurt them in any way. You’re even protecting their privacy.” Sarah grimaced. “Which makes _me_ feel like an ass for pressuring you to try and figure out who it was. Sorry.”

Susan shrugged. “That’s all right. I understand the curiosity.”

Sarah looked at Susan for a moment. “So. You like to watch. And Grace and I like _being_ watched. Which would solve the problem of consent…”

Susan’s head snapped up, her eyes wide. “You’re not _seriously_ proposing that we _—_ I mean, fantasy is one thing, but—” she seemed unable to finish the sentence.

Sarah blushed. “Just thinking aloud. Putting things together.”

Susan stared at her for a moment, getting, if anything, even redder in the face. Then she turned her face away from Sarah, and squirmed a little in her seat. “Gods,” she muttered under her breath.

“What?”

Susan paused a long moment. “I am _such_ a frakking pervert.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because… of how that idea turns me on.”

Sarah snorted. “If that makes you a pervert, then I’m a pervert too.”

“That…” Susan looked back at Sarah, and Sarah was sure her face was as red as Susan’s. Susan gave a small smile and relaxed a little. “That’s actually… comforting. Somehow.”

“One thing I’ve found, as I discuss various fantasies with Tedd and Grace, is that there’s really very little I can think of that they haven’t already thought of. Or vice versa. It _is_ comforting, to know that you’re not the only one with these… kinky thoughts.”

“So…” Susan said hesitantly. “What do you think your lovers would think of _this_ particular fantasy?”

Sarah grinned. “Only one way to find out.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Seriously?” asked Tedd, somewhat incredulously.

“Yes, seriously. I said I’d ask you guys. If that’s a ‘no’, then we don’t need to discuss it any further,” said Sarah, somewhat defensively. “Case closed.”

“Ah…” Tedd looked a little bemused. She glanced at Grace, and then back at Sarah. “I’m not sure… it’s not a hard ‘no.’ I’m willing to at least discuss it.”

The three of them were snuggled together on the couch in Tedd’s basement lab. Tedd was female, and Grace was furry. Sarah had found relaying the details from the previous night’s conversation a little daunting, but she managed it eventually. Ending with the proposition that Susan observe a sexual encounter with them via Little Suze.

“The idea is… intriguing,” said Grace. “But didn’t you say you thought mixing sex with friendships sounds like a recipe for disaster?”

“Yeah. I did,” conceded Sarah. “It does. Which is why we need to talk about it, beforehand. Not just dive into it.”

“Have you ever felt any sexual attraction to Susan?” asked Grace.

Sarah shook her head. “No. I mean, she’s certainly beautiful, and I guess she’s sexy, but she’s more like a sister to me. And knowing she’s pretty close to one hundred percent heterosexual also puts her off limits.”

“And that doesn’t get in the way for you?”

Sarah ran a hand through her hair and thought. “No. She’s not my _actual_ sister. The thought of her watching us doesn’t feel… incestuous. Squicky. I don’t find the idea as hot as, say, having Nanase and Ellen watching us again—”

“ _No_. No way. That one is _flat_ out,” said Tedd emphatically.

Grace looked a little startled at the intensity of Tedd’s response, but it didn’t surprise Sarah. She nodded, and continued, “But I do think it could be… fun.” She looked at Grace. “What about you?” Sarah slipped a hand under Grace’s tank top and stroked her back. Not seductively, just stroking and enjoying the soft texture of Grace’s fur.

Grace stretched and smiled a little in response to being petted, then said, “She’s not someone I’ve ever considered that way before. She’s so reserved. Given that she barely tolerates me hugging her, I’ve never considered anything more physical, let alone sexual, with her.”

“Well, that’s part of the point. A, it wouldn’t be physical, she’d just be watching, and B, she wouldn’t actually be here. Just Little Suze. Which, apparently, she finds a lot less threatening.” Sarah looked at Tedd. “What do you think?”

Tedd was quiet a moment, looking thoughtful. “It’s… this odd sorta-kinda-exhibitionism thing isn’t really my turn-on. It’s you guys’. But… it’s not a turn- _off_ for me, either. It could be fun. I just…” she paused, looking worried.

“What?” prompted Sarah.

“Well… for a long time, I know Susan considered me a bit of a pervert. I like the friendship we have now. What if this makes her think of me as a perv again?”

Sarah laughed a little at that, prompting a small frown from Tedd. “What? What’s funny about not wanting to lose her friendship?”

Sarah leaned over and gave her a quick kiss. “Nothing, sweetie, nothing at all. I wasn’t laughing at that.”

“Then what were you laughing at?”

“Susan expressed a similar concern. She feels a bit perverse in her desires. She called herself a ‘frakking pervert’ at one point. I think she judges herself far more harshly than she’d ever judge you.”

“Just because she judges herself harshly doesn’t mean she can’t, or won’t, judge others,” Grace pointed out.

“True,” conceded Sarah. “But she’s rational enough that I don’t think she’d judge someone else badly for something she herself enjoys. Or instigated.” Sarah paused, thinking a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t think we can answer that question without talking to her, so let’s put that on a list of things to discuss with her beforehand, _if_ we actually go through with this.”

“Are we really considering it?” asked Tedd. She didn’t sound discouraging, just genuinely curious. Sarah and Grace exchanged glances, and Sarah shrugged.

“I’m not ruling it out,” said Sarah.

“I _would_ like to try it,” said Grace. “Even though it’s a little odd, it sounds fun. It’s not as if we three don’t regularly flaunt social norms anyway.”

Tedd and Sarah both laughed a little at that. “True,” said Sarah. “What about you, Tedd? Grace wants to try, and I… all right, I’ll admit, I’m actually more than just not ruling it out. It _does_ appeal to me a little. Turns me on. If we can make it work without damaging our friendship.”

Tedd stared off into the distance for a few moments, an expression Sarah associated with her thinking deeply. Eventually, she nodded, and said, “I’m willing to at least talk with Susan about it. See if it can be made to work. Set up boundaries and guidelines.”

Sarah nodded. “Okay, then. Let’s give her a call.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Between everyone’s work and class schedules, it was not until a week later, late Saturday afternoon, that they all managed to come together to discuss the proposition. Sarah felt the issue lurking beneath the surface of their normal, everyday conversations all that week, whenever she, Susan, and/or Tedd met up at school. But they had agreed to wait until all four of them could be present to discuss the matter, so it just stayed there, simmering beneath the surface of their everyday conversations.

They met at Susan’s house, by her request. Sarah suspected that Susan was feeling insecure about the whole thing too, and wanted to be on her home turf. Given that the triad had each other for support, that didn’t seem unfair.

“Hi, guys, come on in,” said Susan. Sarah was bemused to see that Susan was already blushing, even as she answered the door. _Getting an early start on it, are we?_ Sarah thought. Susan was still in the slacks and polo shirt that she wore for work.

Susan led them downstairs to the TV room. “My room doesn’t have seating for four,” she explained as they went. “And I’d rather not have this conversation with several of us sitting on my bed.”

Sarah, Tedd, and Grace sat down on the couch, with Sarah in the middle. Susan sat in an armchair facing them. There was an awkward pause as they all settled in. Sarah gave a small smile and tentatively essayed, “So… how’s the weather?” Susan chuckled.

Grace picked up the conversational ball cheerfully. “So, we’re here to discuss if we might combine our exhibitionism with your voyeurism. And do it in such a way as to be sexy fun for all of us, and most importantly do it in a way that doesn’t threaten our friendships.”

Susan’s eyebrows shot up at that bald statement, and Sarah laughed. “I warned you. She can be disarmingly forthright, especially about sexual matters.”

“I don’t think I’m _especially_ forthright about sex,” Grace countered. “It’s just that you’re so bashful and shy sometimes that I _have_ to be, in order to make things happen.”

Tedd chuckled. “True, that.”

Sarah rolled her eyes and tried to fight down her own blush. “Right. Well, in any event. The elephant in the room has been addressed. Can we do this? Without effing up our friendships? _Should_ we do this?”

Susan nodded. “Can I start there?”

Sarah glanced at Tedd and Grace, then nodded. “Sure.”

Susan closed her eyes for a moment, as if marshaling her thoughts, then she opened them and sat up straighter, facing the triad. “That’s concern number one for me. That we not damage our friendships.” She locked eyes with Sarah. “You’re my best friend. And have been for years. I want to make sure that nothing we do jeopardizes that.”

Sarah nodded. “Agreed.”

Susan’s gaze flicked to Grace, then Tedd. “Which is not to say that I don’t value your guys’ friendships, too. It wouldn’t be worth it to me to do… _this_ … if it cost me your friendships, either.”

“Agreed, wholeheartedly,” said Tedd. He paused, then said, “One concern I have is your opinion of me.”

Susan looked startled, then puzzled. “How so?”

Tedd pushed a finger along the top of his nose, as if adjusting the glasses he wasn’t wearing. “I know… I didn’t make the best of first impressions with you when we first met, years ago.” Susan’s mouth quirked in half a smile, and she tilted her head, conceding the point. “But… your opinion of me seems to have improved since then. And I’d hate to have you going back to thinking of me as a perv.”

Susan sighed, and shook her head. “If anyone is a pervert here, it’s me.”

“ _No_. You’re not,” said Grace firmly. “Or if you’re perverse, then so are we.”

Susan and Sarah both laughed a little at that. “Sarah said almost exactly the same thing,” said Susan.

Grace shook her head, frowning thoughtfully. “I think we need to stop talking about this like it’s a perversion. It’s not ‘normal’, yes. But neither is our triad. _Clinical_ exhibitionism, and voyeurism, can both be difficult pathologies to live with. But I don’t think we’re talking about that, are we?” She looked at Susan inquiringly. “It’s not an uncontrollable urge, or obsession, that’s interfering with your regular life in any way, is it?”

Susan’s blush returned, in force. “No. I had… one sort of accidental incident. Of voyeurism. _Actual_ voyeurism.” She swallowed, and glanced at Tedd briefly, before returning her attention to Grace. “But it’s not, at least I don’t think it is, pathological at this point. It’s not a need, or compulsion. It’s more just a recurring fantasy.”

“A safe way for you to experience some aspects of sexual intimacy without actual physical contact,” said Grace simply.

Susan squeezed her eyes shut as her blush increased, but after a moment, she nodded.

“Okay then. Then let’s stop calling it a perversion, and just call it a fantasy. One we’re trying to see if we can fulfill. Fulfilling fantasies can be fun, as long as we’re clear about the distinction between reality and fantasy.”

Susan sighed, and seemed to relax a bit at that. She opened her eyes, and smiled. “Okay. It’s a fantasy. Is it one we can… act on? Act out?”

“Yeah. I think so,” said Sarah. “Speaking for the three of us. We’ve discussed this a bit over the last week, and we feel comfortable with it. I think the important thing is to keep the lines of communication open. If things get weird between us, we need to talk it out.”

“Communicate, communicate, communicate,” said Tedd.

Susan laughed. “Yeah, Sarah has mentioned your triad’s mantra before.”

“Well, if you’re going to get involved with us in this, it’s going to get extended to _you_ , too. At least where this fantasy is concerned,” said Sarah.

Susan nodded slowly. “That’s… talking about my feelings is not my greatest strength. Although I probably communicate with you better than anyone else in the world,” she said to Sarah.

“Well, to put it bluntly, if we go through with this, I won’t _let_ it come between us. If it gets too weird, we’ll call it off, and _also_ discuss it, afterwards, until we’re both okay with it. Until we’re _all_ okay with it,” Sarah said.

“Speaking of calling it off, I was thinking, one thing we should establish are some safe words,” said Tedd.

“Words, plural?” asked Grace.

“Yeah, it occurred to me, if things are getting weird and we just call ‘stop’ and Susan withdraws her fairy doll, we don’t have a middle ground for working out mildly awkward moments that aren’t necessarily deal-breakers as they come up.”

“Oh, I get you,” said Grace. “We need something that says, ‘Stop, I quit, this is too much for me,’ but we also should have something which is a sort of ‘take five’ or ‘time out’, so we can stop and discuss things, and potentially carry on from there.”

“Yeah.”

“So… avocado and banana?” suggested Sarah.

“What?” said Susan, looking puzzled.

“Avocado is our usual safe word. Banana just popped into mind because it’s yellow, like a caution sign.”

Tedd and Grace both looked thoughtful. “I can’t recall a single instance where the word banana has come up during sex,” said Grace. “Could work.” She looked at Susan. “What do you think?”

“Ah… it’s not something I have much experience with. _Any_ experience with. So, if anyone says avocado, it’s over, I pull Little Suze back to me. And if anyone says banana, we take five, maybe talk about what’s bothering us, see if we can work it out?”

“Yeah.” Sarah looked at Susan and leaned forward a little. “The thing to know about safe words is, they’re absolute,” she said earnestly. “If someone calls avocado, you vamoose. We stop. All done. No pausing, no hesitating, or waiting to see if they might change their mind. Can you live with that?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t want it any other way. In fact, that makes it easier for me, knowing anyone can call it quits if they want or need to.” Indeed, Sarah noted that Susan’s posture seemed less rigid, and more relaxed, the longer they talked.

“Okay. So, we’ve established safe words, end-point parameters,” said Grace. “How should we _start_ this?”

That lead to a few moments of thoughtful silence.

“Well,” Susan began, “when do you guys have sex? What kind of schedule?”

All three members of the triad looked at her with varying degrees of puzzlement on their faces. “Ah… no schedule,” said Sarah. “It’s a bit more spontaneous than that.”

“For one thing, we’re dependent upon my dad being out of the house for at least a few hours,” added Tedd.

“Additionally, it depends upon at least two of us being in the mood while he’s out of the house,” said Grace.

Susan looked startled. “At _least_ two? You don’t do everything together, all three of you?”

“Eh…” Sarah shrugged. “Maybe three quarters of the time is all three of us, I’d guess?” Tedd and Grace both nodded. “Tedd and Grace certainly get the most ‘couple time,’ because they live in the same house. I get occasional alone time with one or the other, depending upon what the third is doing. Tied up with work, or class, or something else.”

“Oh.” Susan looked a little surprised, and thoughtful.

Tedd cocked his head. “So, wait, are you saying that _you_ schedule your, ah, sexy times?”

Susan blushed, and looked down. “Well… yeah. I usually reserve Sunday nights for, uh, masturbating.”

“Only once a week?” Grace blurted incredulously. Tedd and Sarah both gave her sharp looks, and she blushed, and backpedaled, “I mean, whatever works for you, of course, it’s your body. It’s just…” She looked like she was wrestling to balance her incredulity with her manners. “Only once? _Really_?”

“Well…” Susan took a deep breath. “Yeah. That’s what works. For me.” She looked at Grace curiously. “What about you? More than once a week, I gather?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, pretty much every other night or so, unless I’m exhausted, or have made love recently.”

Sarah was startled. “I didn’t know that.”

Grace looked at her quizzically. “What, just because I have a sex life, I’m supposed to stop masturbating? Have you?”

“Ah…” Sarah blushed. “Well. No. Though I do it less often. Maybe once or twice a week. You guys keep me… pretty happy.”

Grace shrugged. “It’s not a matter of being happy. It’s a matter of being horny.” The others laughed.

“It’s true, sometimes the, um, self-centered, single-minded focus of… playing solo… is nice,” admitted Tedd.

“And how often for you,” prompted Sarah, teasingly.

Tedd grinned through his blush, and admitted, “About the same as Grace, I guess. Every other day or so.”

“Huh. Wow,” said Susan.

Sarah looked at her inquiringly.

Susan shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess we always consider ourselves ‘normal’ until we bump up against what other people really do.”

“Well, most people don’t talk that much about how often they masturbate,” said Grace with a smile.

“And it’s not as if we get to have sex whenever we want to,” sighed Tedd.

Sarah looked a little wistful at that thought. “Wouldn’t _that_ be nice.”

“So, how often _do_ you? Have sex?” asked Susan.

Tedd shrugged. “Like I said, it’s mostly dependent upon my dad being out of the house for long enough.”

“Or my parents,” put in Sarah. “Though that’s only happened the once.”

“Yeah, and I wasn’t even there for that one,” grumbled Tedd.

“Next time, sweetie,” said Sarah, consolingly.

“But, to answer your question, we manage to find time maybe once a week or so, if we’re lucky. A little less, on average, I guess. Though there was that lovely week when Dad took a four-day trip out of town…” Tedd trailed off, smiling in fond reminiscence.

“Bombed my bio quiz that week,” recalled Sarah.

“And I can’t think if we’ve _ever_ made love on a Sunday night,” put in Grace. “Edward is pretty much always home then, and we’re almost always busy with homework and such.”

Susan grimaced. “It doesn’t _have_ to be a Sunday. That’s just… my habit. It allows me to start the week without my libido driving me nuts at school. It’s not as if I _never_ masturbate on other nights. Just… rarely.” She sighed. “Or, at least, it _had_ been rarely, before the fairy dolls.”

“Before the fairy dolls?” Tedd looked puzzled but intrigued.

Susan looked at Sarah. “Didn’t you tell them about Little Suze?”

Sarah shook her head. “I thought that was something you’d rather keep private. And I didn’t think it would be relevant to this conversation.”

Susan sighed. “Um…” Her blush intensified. “I had sort of assumed you _would_ tell them.”

Sarah arched an eyebrow. “Do you _want_ me to tell them?”

Susan opened her mouth, then closed it. She grimaced, looked a little annoyed with herself, then nodded.

“Okay. Well.” Sarah paused as she tried to figure out how best to summarize her conversation with Susan. “Susan’s… self-control. Her ability to keep her libido in check. Is fine, when it’s just her. But… when she’s inhabiting Little Suze, it seems to… unleash her libido, a bit.” Seeing the puzzled look on Grace’s face, she amplified, “She gets horny a lot more easily when she’s not in her own body. And masturbates more, too. A _lot_ more.” She glanced over at Susan, who was sitting with her eyes squeezed shut in embarrassment. “Uh, was that an accurate summary?” she asked.

Susan opened her eyes and took a deep breath. “Yeah.”

“So, if you want to control your libido, why don’t you just _not_ inhabit your fairy dolls?” asked Grace.

Susan smiled. “Because it’s fun? _You_ may be able to fly whenever you want to, but inhabiting a fairy doll is the only way _I_ ever get to. And it’s not as if I pop myself into Little Suze’s body and, _bam_ , I’m suddenly horny. It’s just a more common occurrence when I’m in fairy doll form. Not every time.”

“You say Little Suze,” said Tedd. “What about with Little Nase, or Little Teddy?”

Sarah chuckled, and Susan rolled her eyes. “I’ve never inhabited Teddy,” Susan admitted. “That… just seems like all kinds of awkward, to me.”

Tedd looked puzzled. “Am I the only person who gladly jumped at the opportunity to explore being in the opposite sex’s body?”

“Well, you’re the gender fluid one, not me,” said Susan. “And who else are you talking about?”

Tedd tilted his head at Sarah. “Sare had a male clone-form watch available for her use, and she never used it to explore being male, sexually or otherwise. Not until she did it with us.”

“Not _just_ a male form, sweetie. It was _your_ form,” Sarah protested. “Before we started dating, that just felt too intimate, an invasion of privacy. And after…” she trailed off, looking thoughtful. “The same, I guess.” She sighed. “Or maybe it was just simple cowardice.”

“I’m not sure if cowardice is the right word,” said Susan, “but I was given enough food for thought, being male at Grace’s party. I really have no urge to experience it again any time soon.”

“Okay, well, you certainly shouldn’t do anything that you don’t want to do,” said Tedd. Though Sarah could tell from his tone of voice that he had a hard time imagining _not_ wanting to.

“And besides, it only seems to happen when I’m inhabiting Little Suze. Being in Little Nase, or Little Gracie, is… sex-free.”

Grace perked up at this reminder. “I forgot you have a Gracie doll. Can I see her?”

“What? Oh. You’ve never seen it? Sure.” Susan closed her eyes, then there was a _pop_ of displaced air as the Little Gracie fairy doll appeared in the air in front of her. It looked just like a ten or eleven inch tall human-form Grace, with the addition of a long tail and delicate wings. Grace laughed in delight.

“She’s so _cute!_ ”

Sarah laughed. “Because she looks like _you_ , my love.”

The little doll flew over to hover in front of Grace’s face, and Susan spoke through the doll. “Like I said, inhabiting Gracie or Nase is asexual. I’m not sure why. Maybe because I identify with Little Suze more?” The little figure shrugged. “I guess being in Teddy would probably be asexual too, but I don’t feel like risking it to find out.” She flew a loop, then stopped to hover in front of the Grace again. “But it’s still lots of fun,” she said, with a grin. Sarah was intrigued to see that Susan’s actual body had a faint echo of the more expressive grin on Little Gracie’s face.

Grace held out her hand, invitingly, and Susan landed the fairy doll on her hand, then sat down in her palm. The doll stiffened and went plastic, as Susan left the doll and opened the eyes on her own body.

“Wow,” said Grace. “That was kind of freaky to watch.”

“What was?” asked Tedd.

“One minute, it looks like a miniature me, fully alive, and then the next it’s a plastic copy. Kinda weird, when it’s your own face.”

“Yeah, I suppose it would be,” said Sarah. She glanced at Susan. “You ever think about asking Nanase to make you a Little Sarah doll?” she asked, only half-joking.

Susan snorted. “I’m having enough issues with the ones I’ve got, thanks.”

Grace was gently moving the limbs of Little Gracie, posing the small winged figure to sit on her knee. Then she shook her head, and looked up. “Sorry. I’m getting us off-topic here.”

“That’s all right. The topic is embarrassing enough that occasional breaks are useful,” said Susan.

“So…” Sarah racked her brain to remember where they had been, conversationally speaking. “Timing. When could we do this? I guess we’d have not only the issue of when Edward is out of the house for a while, but also when Susan is free. Not at work, or with her mom or something.”

“And when we’re all in the mood,” added Grace. “All four of us.”

Tedd sighed. “That’s a lot of variables.”

Sarah laughed. “Has there ever been a time when Edward’s been out of the house and we’re _not_ in the mood?”

There was a slight pause as Tedd and Grace gave that some thought. “Well… there was the night before our senior projects were due,” said Grace.

“Ugh. Yeah, all right, but that was a special case.” Sarah frowned and shook her head. “Still can’t believe she gave me an A minus…” she muttered.

Tedd shrugged. “The simple fact is, we get the opportunity for sex so rarely, we pretty much always jump at the chance when we can.”

“So, it’s a matter of, when do we have the house to ourselves for a while, and when is Susan ready for some unscheduled sexy fun times,” said Grace.

Susan looked a little embarrassed, and said, “If it’s for something, ah… _special_ … like this, I don’t think I’ll have any difficulty getting in the mood.”

“So. When is Edward next out of town at the same time Susan isn’t working?”

“Beats me,” said Tedd. “His trips are almost always scheduled at the last minute. In response to some emergency or other. I can’t think of any planned trips coming up at the mo, can you?” he asked Grace.

Grace shook her head. “Why don’t you give us all a copy of your work schedule,” Grace said to Susan. “That way we’ll know if something overlaps.”

“Sure. I’ll give you all access to my work calendar.”

“Okay. So, that’s safe words and timing. What else?”

There was a slight pause as they all considered it, then Susan said, “I don’t know if… this seems like an embarrassingly personal question…”

Sarah laughed. “We’re talking about you watching us have sex. Can you get much more personal?”

Susan smiled a little. “I guess. All right. What I was wondering was: what sexes are you going to be?”

“Ah. Yeah. That _can_ be a bit variable,” conceded Tedd. “I’m certainly the most variable one of the group, with Grace being second. Sarah’s usually happy being female.”

“Did you have any preferences?” asked Grace curiously.

“Well… I don’t want to dictate what you guys do in bed together,” Susan began.

“The whole idea is to do something that’s fun for _all_ of us, sweetie. If there’s something you’d like to see, or would really rather _not_ see, you should let us know,” said Grace.

“We’re flexible,” said Tedd.

Susan smiled. “It’s just… I’m pretty straight. If you were all female, it would be… interesting? But not terribly sexy for me.”

“What if we were all male?” asked Grace.

“Uh…” Susan blushed. “That’s… sexier, for some reason. I guess because I like men. Like looking at men. But I’d really rather just see some combination of male and female. Boringly hetero.”

Tedd grinned. “Oh, don’t worry, it’s not boring.”

“And me human?” asked Grace.

Susan looked startled. “Pardon?”

“I mean, would you prefer for me to be in a human form, not my natural form?”

“Uh…” Susan paused. “I… hadn’t considered that. I guess I should have.” She thought for a moment, then said, “Yeah. If you don’t mind.”

“Not a problem for me,” said Grace. “Just wanted to check.”

“You said hetero,” said Sarah, “but, until Tedd develops a hermaphrodite setting for the TF gun, there’s always going to be at least two people of the same sex in our group. Does same-sex activity bother you?”

“No, it’s just not as sexy. At least, in theory. Maybe the reality will prove different.” She paused, then looked at Tedd curiously. “Are you _really_ trying to develop a hermaphrodite setting?”

“More like, trying to perfect it,” sighed Tedd. “It’s… surprisingly complicated.”

Susan paused, opened her mouth as if to say something, then shook her head and didn’t.

“Where are you going to be during the event?” asked Grace.

“Hmm? What do you mean? Me, or Suze?”

“Well, both, I guess.”

“I, or rather, my body, I guess I should have here. At home, I mean. My body… _responds_ … to what I’m doing in fairy doll form.” Susan’s blush returned. “I don’t want to have to be dealing with… wet panties… somewhere else, when it’s all over.”

“Makes sense,” said Grace. “And what about Little Suze? Do you want to be concealed? Pretending you’re actually spying on us, watching us illicitly? Or out in the open?”

“Oh!” Susan gulped. “I… wow.” She blinked a few times, considering.

“How had you been envisioning it?” asked Sarah curiously.

“Well… I’d just sort of assumed, since we’re planning it out in advance like this, not doing it illicitly, I’d just be… I dunno. Sitting on a shelf? On your desk? Flying around? Somewhere pretty much out in the open.”

“Is that what you’d prefer?” asked Grace. “We don’t mind role-playing, pretending we don’t know you’re there, if that makes it hotter for you.”

 _Not that I don’t want to watch you too,_ thought Sarah. She wasn’t sexually attracted to Susan, but she did wonder what her tightly controlled friend looked like in the throes of passion.

Susan gave the matter some thought. “Before… the one time I was watching, um, someone. Part of the excitement was the uncertainty, and fear of being caught. But… I’m not sure I want to reinforce that particular aspect of it. I think… I think it might be healthier to just be out in the open about it. Just enjoy the show, as it were, without the subterfuge and hiding.” She paused, then looked up at the triad. “What do you think?”

“Sounds sensible to me,” said Sarah. “In more ways than one.” She glanced at her lovers. “Would that be okay with you guys?”

“Sure.”

“Sounds good,” said Grace. “But if you’re in the open, do you want us talking with you? Or should we just try to ignore you, or pretend you’re not there?”

“Um.” Susan frowned. “I’m just realizing. If I’m not hiding, you all will be able to see _me_ , see Little Suze. While I’m masturbating. The voyeur turned exhibitionist.”

“Well, yeah,” said Sarah. “But it’ll be you in miniature. I don’t think we’ll be able to see much detail, other than tiny nipples and some hair. Or we could give you a doll blanket to hide under.”

Susan snorted. “It’s not you seeing my body I’m concerned with. Well… not primarily. It’s more…” she trailed off, biting her lip.

“Oh. Yeah. It was a little weird, the first time Tedd and Grace saw me have an orgasm,” said Sarah. “It takes some getting used to, sharing something that’s always been so private.”

Tedd nodded, and smiled sympathetically. “I had problems coming, the first couple of times Grace and I made love. It felt… not exactly embarrassing. But… it was awkward. Self-conscious.”

“It’s definitely a different kind of vulnerability, and openness, that you don’t experience anywhere else,” said Grace.

“Or you could just… enjoy the show. Watch, and _not_ masturbate, until you get back home,” suggested Sarah. Trying to be helpful, even though she _really_ wanted the chance to see Susan orgasming. Even if it was in miniature.

“I’m… I’m going to have to think about this aspect of it a little,” said Susan. “Let’s circle back around to this later.”

“Okay,” said Sarah. “Did you have any other things you felt we should discuss?” She glanced at Grace and Tedd. “Or you guys?” she added.

“Do you plan on just watching us, or do you think you’ll want to interact with us? Touch us?” asked Grace.

“ _Just_ watching, definitely,” said Susan quickly, looking slightly alarmed.

“Oh. All right,” said Grace, sounding slightly wistful.

Sarah shot her a quizzical glance. “Why? Were you thinking of something else?”

Grace shrugged, and stroked Little Gracie’s hair with a finger. “I hadn’t been, until I met my miniature self. It just seemed like it could be an interesting opportunity. For Susan. To see things up close and personal.”

Sarah looked at Susan, and had to fight down the urge to giggle at her shocked, wide-eyed expression. “Ah, I think it might be a little bit… _intimidating_ , for her first contact with an actual penis to be with one that’s over half her height, and as big around as her torso,” suggested Sarah gently. Susan just nodded mutely in agreement.

“Oh. I hadn’t thought of it that way,” said Grace. Sarah noticed that Tedd seemed to be fighting back laughter as well.

“ _Definitely_ hands-off,” Susan finally managed to say, in a choked voice.

“All right. I guess I can understand that,” Grace said. “Though I wonder, if Nanase made me a fairy doll, could I learn to inhabit it too?…”

Sarah was momentarily arrested by the mental image of a Little Gracie fairy doll crawling around her and Tedd’s bodies while they were making love. The notion was… definitely weird. But also, intriguing. Slightly sexy. In an undefinable way. She shook her head to dispel the vision before her imagination could get carried away, and tried to bring her focus back to the issue at hand. Glancing to the side, she was unsurprised to see that Tedd seemed to be lost in reverie as well. She poked him in the ribs with an elbow. He jumped, and returned his attention to the present moment, flushing slightly.

“ _Right_. Well,” said Sarah, a little loudly. “Aside from a hetero pairing, did you have any other requests for us? Anything in particular you’ve always fantasized about seeing?”

Grace smiled. “As long as we’re putting on a show, it might as well be one the audience likes.”

“Oh.” Susan stared at the floor for a few moments in thought. “I… don’t know.”

“You don’t need to feel embarrassed about your fantasies,” said Grace. “We’ve all shared our fantasies among ourselves, and I doubt you’d be able to come up with something so outré it surprises or offends us.”

Susan smiled sourly, and shook her head.

“She really means it,” said Sarah. “We’ve… shared quite a few different fantasies, and found ways to make a significant chunk of them come true, to one extent or another.”

“Transformation tech allows us a bit more freedom than the average triad,” said Tedd. “If you wanted to see, say, Jason D. Poit making love to Sarah, we’ve already got his form on file.”

Susan looked startled. “No, I don’t think so. I just—”

When she paused a long moment, Grace added, “Besides, we’re already sharing our exhibitionism and voyeurism fantasies.”

Susan nodded, then took a deep breath before forging on. “Since there are three of you. If two of you were male. I’ve always liked the thought of, uh, simultaneous intercourse and fellatio.” She looked down, and covered her mouth with her hand.

“What, double penetration?” asked Grace. “Yeah, that’s hot.”

Susan looked up, red-faced, and asked, “That’s not… too outrageous?”

Sarah tried not to laugh at her friend’s embarrassment, and she noticed Tedd and Grace were smiling too. “With three lovers, DP is one of the more natural things in the world, when at least two of us are male.”

“At _least_ two?…” Susan looked puzzled for a moment, then looked abashed. “Oh. Yeah, I guess three guys could do that too.” She grimaced, a little moue of distaste. “Uh, that does bring up one other thing. That I’d rather _not_ see. If you don’t mind.”

“What’s that?” asked Grace.

“It’s just… I’m a little germ phobic. I’d really rather not watch you guys engaging in anal sex. The thought of it is just a little too… too disturbing for me.”

Sarah shrugged, and Tedd and Grace nodded. “That’s fine,” said Sarah. “It’s not something we do a lot of, anyway.”

“Although, you know, with sufficient advance planning, preparation, and condoms, it isn’t much more unhygienic than regular sex,” said Grace. “And if you really want to be extra-clean about it, you just need to do an enema or two beforehand, and—”

“Yes, yes, yes, I know,” said Susan hurriedly, blushing even more. “Even so. I just have difficulty separating it from, uh, excretory functions.”

“Fair enough. So, one order of DP, no butt-stuff,” said Tedd. Everyone else burst out laughing at his summary.

“Yes, please,” said Susan, through her giggles.

“So, is there anything else you’d like to ‘order’?” asked Sarah. Before Susan could respond, Grace’s stomach growled, rather audibly. Grace smiled a little sheepishly.

“Chinese take-out?” suggested Susan with a smile.

“Yes, please!” said Grace.

They decamped to the kitchen to pore over menus and phone in their order. Talk drifted to their upcoming graduation, and summer plans. While waiting for their food to be delivered, Susan disappeared for a few minutes to change out of her work uniform into more comfortable sweats and t-shirt. They ended up eating in front of the television while watching a couple of episodes of the original Star Trek, since Susan felt Tedd wasn’t giving Grace enough exposure to it.

“Really, it’s such a basic foundation of nerd culture. If you’re working in a comic shop, you need to broaden your horizons. It’s not all just Star Wars and Joss Whedon,” lectured Susan.

A couple of hours later, food consumed and the Federation once again saved from the ecological horror of tribbles, Susan turned the TV off. Sarah, who had been sitting on the floor, turned around to face the three sitting on the couch, and leaned back against the armchair.

“So.” She looked up at Susan. “You said you needed time to think about what you wanted Little Suze to be doing while watching us. Has it been enough time, or should we ask you on another day?”

Susan shook her head. “I think I’m good.” She took a deep breath, then said, “The way I see it is, if I’m really going to do this, I might as well go all-in. If I’m going to get to watch _you_ making love, and having orgasms, it only seems fair that you get to see me.”

“Wow.” Although Sarah had kind of been hoping for something like that, she had not actually expected that response. “I must confess, that surprises me a little.”

“Me too,” said Tedd.

Susan grinned a little sardonically. “Me too, too. But, the more I thought about it, even just the practicalities of it—watching, and masturbating, while not actively hiding, but also not being seen by you—it all just seemed too convoluted. The only practical way for you to not see me playing with myself is for me to hide. Which I don’t want to do. So… of necessity, the voyeur becomes an exhibitionist.”

Grace cocked her head. “Is it _just_ a necessity? Or does the thought turn you on at all?”

Susan blushed, and shrugged. “A little, I guess. Enough to help overcome my embarrassment. I hope. We’ll see what happens when the time comes.”

“So, do you mind if we talk with you?” asked Tedd. “During the, uh, events?”

“I… don’t think so? That may be a banana situation. Let’s see how we feel at the time.”

“There will be a lot of that, I suspect,” said Sarah.

“Truly.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

A couple of weeks later, Sarah looked at Grace’s, Susan’s, and her work schedules on her calendar app, and sighed. “Do you remember when I complained that I thought the universe was conspiring to prevent me from ever losing my virginity?”

“Oh, yes,” said Tedd. “Fortunately, your mother didn’t hear you.”

“Well, I think the universe has moved on to blocking Susan and us from ever getting together.”

“I’m sorry,” said Grace. “It seems like my work schedule is as much to blame as Susan’s.” She stuck her hand into a corn chip bag, only to pull it out empty. She gave Tedd a slightly accusing look, which he missed.

“It’s not either of your faults,” said Sarah. “But you two _do_ seem to have amazingly complementary work schedules. When she’s off, you’re working, and vice versa. And my work shifts, few as they are, seem to fill in the gaps where you both are available.”

“I’ve covered a few shifts for George and Justin recently, so they both owe me a few favors. The next time Edward’s out of town and Susan’s available, I should be able to get that afternoon or night off.” She crumpled up the empty chip bag and lobbed it into the trash can, then stood up.

“That’s good planning. Now we just need to get rid of Dad,” Tedd said.

“Get _rid_ of him, eh? Hmmm…” Sarah rubbed her hands together and tried to look diabolical. She gave an experimental evil cackle, which unfortunately came out sounding more like an asthmatic chicken squawking.

“You okay, Sare?” asked Grace, looking puzzled.

Sarah sighed. “Never mind. I guess I’m just not cut out to be an evil overlord.”

Grace patted her on the shoulder as she headed towards the stairs. “That’s all right, sweetie. You can be one of my minions. Anyone need anything from the kitchen?”

“What?” Sarah twisted around where she was sitting on the couch to watch Grace climb the stairs. “Your _minion_?”

“All right, you can be my _head_ minion,” said Grace, as she disappeared from view. Sarah gave Tedd a bemused look.

“Hey, at least you get to be the head minion,” Tedd said. “I’m just a regular minion.”

Sarah stared blankly at Tedd for a moment, then heard Grace’s giggle drifting down the stairs, which caused both Tedd and her to burst into laughter.

“Maybe the head minion is responsible for giving her head?” suggested Tedd through his laughter.

Sarah laughed some more. “In that case, we should _both_ be her head minions.”

Grace had apparently loitered at the top of the stairs, because her voice came back down, “There’s only room for one at the top. You might need to compete for the honor.”

Tedd’s eyes lit up, and he grinned. “Ooh, a challenge.”

Sarah grinned back. “This might require many rounds of competition to determine the winner.”

“Many _many_ rounds.”

“And _I’ll_ be the winner,” came Grace’s laughing voice from upstairs.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Hi, Sarah.”

“Hi, Susan. Are you still not working tonight?”

“Uh, yeah, I’ve got tonight off.”

“ _Excellent_. Would Little Suze like to drop by for a nice long visit in an hour or so?”

“Oh!” Sarah listened to a few moments of silence on the other end of the phone, then Susan drew in a shaky breath. “Uh, sure. That—that’d be great.”

“Around seven okay?”

“Sure, sure. Uh, where should I go?”

“Meet us in Grace’s room?”

“Okay. See you then.”

“We’re looking forward to it!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

A little after seven, Sarah heard Jeremy meowing in the living room, then came a delicate tapping sound on Grace’s bedroom door. Puzzled, Sarah got up to open the door and peek out into the hall. Little Suze was hovering before the door. Jeremy was immediately below, staring up at the fairy doll with his tail lashing back and forth.

“Uh, hi,” said Susan, somewhat awkwardly.

“Hi yourself,” said Sarah, as she opened the door wider to let the fairy doll fly into the room. She expertly blocked Jeremy with her foot to keep him out as she closed the door. “Sorry, Jeremy.” To Susan, she said, “What were you doing out there?”

“I discovered I didn’t have a good enough memory of Grace’s room to materialize here. I’ve only been here once. I had to materialize in the living room. Much to Jeremy’s frustration.”

“Ah. Okay.” Sarah went and sat back down on the edge of Grace’s bed, where Tedd and Grace also sat waiting. Susan flew around them once, and came to a halt, hovering in the air in front of them.

“So…” Susan began hesitantly.

“So…” Sarah echoed.

“Where to begin?” said Tedd.

“Well, we could all get naked,” suggested Grace cheerfully. Sarah sighed, Susan blushed, and Tedd laughed.

“Ah, maybe start a little slower? A little more seductively?” suggested Sarah with a smile.

“A little more of a show?” said Tedd.

“How would you normally start?” asked Susan curiously.

The three on the bed looked at each other, and shrugged. “That’s _really_ variable,” said Tedd.

“Depends on who’s feeling the most, uh, urgency,” said Sarah.

“That is, who’s horniest,” said Grace. Tedd coughed and grinned.

“Sometimes one person seduces the other two. Sometimes two of us are in sync, and pounce on the third. Sometimes we all just dive right in. Other times it’s slower,” said Sarah. “Like he said. Variable.”

“So… maybe now is a time to pretend I’m not here. Don’t worry about ‘putting on a show,’ just… enjoy yourselves,” said Susan. “Each other.” She flew to the dresser and landed there, then sat down cross-legged, her tail twitching nervously beside her.

“Sure.”

“Sounds good.”

Sarah looked away from Susan, and at her lovers. _Right. Pretend she’s not there. So, what would I normally be doing now?_ The three of them were sitting on Grace’s bed, clothed, not cuddled in tight together, but touching. _Well, for one, Tedd looks like he needs a kiss right now,_ she thought with a smile. She leaned over closer to him, and gave him a gentle kiss, not prolonged, but sweet.

“Thanks,” Sarah said, as she reached up and stroked the side of his face.

Tedd gave her a puzzled little smile. “For what?”

“Agreeing to be male for this little scenario.”

Tedd laughed. “As long as I get to make love with my loves, that doesn’t really matter too much.” He pulled her in close for another kiss, and Sarah leaned into it, enjoying the taste and feel of him. She felt a hand on the back of her neck, then Grace’s fingernail trailing down the length of her spine. Even though her clothes, it made her gasp and shiver, and she moaned softly into Tedd’s mouth. Grace sat back a little, and peeled off her shirt. As usual, she was the first to start discarding clothing.

She felt Grace snuggle in closer, then felt the little tickle along her skin, almost like static, that she felt when Grace shifted forms while touching her. She heard a little startled noise from Susan, and broke off her kiss to glance at her. Susan was staring at Grace, slightly wide-eyed, and Sarah grinned. Grace in male form was as beautiful as he ever was, with his broad muscular shoulders and long flowing hair. Sarah twined her fingers into Grace’s thick hair, and pulled him close for a kiss of his own. She breathed in his scent as she did so. Grace in male form was a little taller than Sarah, and while they were sitting up she had to tilt her head back to make contact.

As she kissed Grace, Tedd ran his hands down the length of her back, stroking her and making her feel warm and happy. Sarah planted a hand on Grace’s chest, luxuriating in the feeling of his broad pectorals under her hand. Although she loved Tedd, in all his female or androgynous male forms, there was something viscerally satisfying about occasionally being with someone who was so emphatically male. She broke off their kiss, and bent her head to lick and suck at Grace’s nipples. She felt Tedd shift in to give Grace a kiss too as she did. Grace made a happy little purring sound that was unique to Grace, mostly human, but with a touch of the animal to the sound. Sarah wrapped her arms around Grace and traced her hands up and down his back as she continued gently worrying his nipple with her teeth. Her hands roamed across his shoulders and back, enjoying the smooth muscular strength of his broad back. She curled one hand into a claw and gently trailed her fingernails down the center of his back, causing him to moan into Tedd’s mouth as they kissed.

Sarah sat up a little, which pulled her away from Tedd and Grace. The two of them broke apart, both breathing a little more heavily, and gazed at each other for a moment. Sarah saw Grace’s eyes flick toward her, and his eyebrows twitch, and Tedd grinned in response. The two men turned towards her, and each wrapped an arm around her waist, and leaned in kiss her neck, one on each side. Sarah hissed, “Yesss…” as they both gently kissed her neck, and Sarah felt the flush of heat spread down her neck to her breasts, her nipples hardening in response. Her head rolled back, eyes closed, and she pressed her neck into their mouths, enjoying the hot wet pressure against her pulse points.

She loved that they knew her well enough to do this to her, _for_ her, a duet of lovers playing her body like an instrument. She sucked in a shaky breath, and reveled in the attention they were giving her. Feeling desirable, desired, and loved. Grace cupped one breast in his hand and gently squeezed, pinching her nipple though the fabric of her shirt and bra. _Why on Earth did I wear a bra tonight?_ thought Sarah distractedly, even as she moaned softly in response to the sensation.

Grace seemed to be thinking along similar lines, because he smiled and said, “Aren’t you two kinda overdressed for the occasion?”

“Um. Us two?” said Sarah, then she glanced down. Of course, somehow Grace had managed to finish undressing while kissing her, without her even noticing. She bit her lip at the sight of Grace’s cock, half erect and twitching slightly in time with his pulse. “Umf. Yummy.”

She reached for the button at the top of her jeans, then realized that the three of them were tangled up enough that she’d have to break away from them to get her pants off. She slid out of bed and stood up, and Tedd followed suit, peeling his t-shirt off even as he stood. For some reason Grace, in a gesture that seemed uncharacteristically modest, pulled the sheet up over his waist. Sarah arched her eyebrows at him, but he just smiled and flicked a glance towards Susan.

Sarah looked to Susan, who was watching them with a rapt expression on her flushed face. She gave a hesitant little smile when she noticed Sarah looking at her, and Sarah smiled in return.

Sarah stood there, her hands on the button of her jeans, hesitating. Looking at Susan, and Susan gazing back. Sarah was surprised to find she was feeling a little shy. Susan had certainly seen her naked before, that wasn’t anything new. And she felt a flush of heat at the thought of Susan watching her making love. _So why am I stalling on getting naked?_

It was Susan who broke the awkward stand-off. “Oh, to hell with it,” said Susan. “If we’re gonna to do this, let’s do this.” She stood up on the edge of Grace’s dresser, and proceeded to strip out of the fairy doll’s unitard. She moved quickly, not hesitating once she started, and ended up standing in front of them, naked, in fairly short order. Sarah admired Susan’s commitment and resolve. Once she’d decided to do something, she did it.

Susan looked up at the three of them, all looking at her, and only _then_ did she blush. Her hands moved as if to cover herself, but she aborted the gesture, clenched her hands into fists, and instead took off, hovering above the dresser so she was at eye level with Sarah and Tedd.

Sarah had seen Susan naked before, in the locker room, or while changing clothes at each other’s house, but never in a sexual context. She’d never studied her. The small scale of the fairy doll couldn’t hide the fact that she was beautiful, long and slender, with a delicate bust that seemed perfectly proportional to her slim build. Sarah could just barely detect that her small pink nipples were erect; it was not easy to see at this scale. Susan’s long flowing black hair provided a kind of dark aura behind her, that rippled in the breeze generated by her wings, beautifully accentuating her pale skin by contrast. The black mane matched the neatly trimmed narrow rectangle of black hair between her legs.

“Ah… would you mind answering a magic-related science question?” Tedd asked, hesitantly. He was standing shirtless with his hand on his pants, unbuttoned but not yet unzipped and lowered.

Susan looked at him for a moment, her expression incredulous, then she laughed. “Okay. Sure. Shoot.”

“You were blonde, at birth, right?”

“Yes.”

“But your hair changed to black when you magically awoke?”

“Right.” Susan’s mouth began to twitch at the corner, a smile creeping out.

“So… did the carpet not match the drapes before, or did your pubic hair turn black then too?”

Susan laughed, blushing a little, but she seemed genuinely amused. “Only you, Tedd,” she said, shaking her head.

Tedd looked a little abashed. “Sorry. I just think of these things, sometimes at inappropriate times.”

“It’s true, he does,” said Grace, from his position sprawled on the bed. “His mind almost never stops working.”

“Almost never?” asked Susan.

“Well, a good orgasm can shut down his higher neural functions pretty well for a _little_ while,” Grace smirked.

“Well, yeah, genius or not, he _is_ still only human.” Susan shook her head, smiled, and said, “My pubic hair was blonde before I awoke, yes. Everything changed, from my scalp to my leg hair, and everything in between.”

“Ah. Okay. Thanks.”

“So.” Susan flew a little circuit around Grace’s bedroom, before coming back to hover in front of Sarah and Tedd, still standing beside the bed. “I can’t believe that I’m the second one to get naked. Are you two going to join us, or is it just going to be Grace and me?”

Sarah shook herself out of her inactivity, and began pulling off clothes. “Sorry. I was just captivated by the sight of you.”

“What?” Susan looked baffled.

“You’re so beautiful.”

“Oh.” Susan blushed some more, and she sank down in the air a foot, before recovering and bringing herself back up to head level.

Sarah noticed that Susan’s gaze seemed to be locked on her face as she undressed, and she glanced to the side, to see that Tedd had finished undressing. She smiled at the sight of her naked lover, enjoying the view. He was only partially erect so far, but she planned to change that soon. She licked her lips as she admired his cock, a sudden rush of heat washing through her.

Sarah looked back to Susan, and said, “He’s not Medusa. You won’t turn to stone if you look at him.” She smirked. “Although parts of _him_ are are heading towards getting rock hard.”

Susan blushed, took a deep breath, and turned to look at Tedd. She swallowed, audible even at her small scale, and Sarah laughed. “Never knew nerdy could be so sexy, did you?” she teased.

“Ah. No,” admitted Susan.

“So, take a seat and prepare to enjoy the show. I’m feeling a little hungry right now.”

“Hungry?” said Susan, puzzled.

“Cock hungry.”

“ _Sarah!_ ” Susan squeaked, turning even redder. Sarah laughed. The thought of showing off sexually had been arousing to her, but she hadn’t realized it could also just be _fun_.

Sarah looked at Grace, still sprawled out on the bed, his erection making a tent of the sheet. Sarah smiled and asked him, “Do you mind?” while gesturing to Tedd.

“Be my guest,” said Grace with a grin.

Sarah needed no more encouragement. She lowered herself to her knees in front of Tedd, and looked up at him. “Hey, lover. You got something I want.”

Tedd smiled down at her and ran a hand through her hair. “Well, I’m always happy to share.” He ran his thumb over her lips, and she gave it a quick little nibble and kiss.

Sarah wrapped her arms around him, grabbing his sweet little ass in both hands and pulling him near. She kissed his hip bone, brushing her cheek against his cock. She rubbed her face all along the length of his cock, enjoying the masculine scent of him, delivering a series of soft kisses across his belly and thighs. She loved the feeling of his cock against her face, smooth silk skin covering a rock hard core. Tedd finished coming fully erect as she kissed him, and he moaned softly. She made a happy purring sound herself. She grabbed the shaft of his cock with one hand, pulling his foreskin the rest of the way off the head of his cock. She smiled up at Tedd, who was looking down at her with parted lips, already breathing a little heavily.

Sarah glanced over at the desk, where Susan had settled down, leaning back against a large teddy bear. Her eyes were locked on Tedd and Sarah. She sat with her legs together, stretched out in front of her with ankles crossed. One hand was clamped between her thighs, the other was resting on her breast, thumb slowly stroking her nipple. Sarah smiled and winked at her, then she turned her attention back to Tedd. She found Susan’s eyes on her energizing, and she wanted to give Tedd as good a blowjob as she could. To give as good a _show_ as she could.

She looked up at Tedd as she ran just the tip of her tongue along the length of his cock. He was smiling back down at her, eyes half-lidded with pleasure, and one hand gently scratched her scalp behind her ears, causing goosebumps all over her body. His hips twitched, trying to get his cock in greater contact with her tongue, and she smiled.

“You want more?” she asked teasingly.

“Oh, yeah,” he breathed.

“Me too.” With that, she slid him into her mouth, swallowing over half of him in one slow move.

Sarah loved the feeling of going down on Tedd. Not just the physical sensation, of his lovely cock inside her, but the power to make him moan and gasp so beautifully. He was so intellectual, rarely visibly passionate about anything not magic or science related. Being able to arouse such physical passion in him aroused her, too. And although she loved the give-and-take of making love, of being stroked and kissed and loved in return, there was also something just fundamentally wonderful and loving about being totally focused on only his pleasure for a time. As she sucked on him, mouth moving up and down his cock, hands playing gently with his balls, she forgot about Susan and Grace for a few minutes. This was just the two of them. Her mouth and hands, giving pleasure, him receiving it, his gentle moans an erotic music to her ears.

She was reminded of the others’ presence when she started to massage a slick wet finger against Tedd’s asshole, preparatory to slipping a finger or two in, but he clenched his buttocks against her. She was startled at first—he usually loved that—but then she remembered Susan. _Oh, right. One order of DP, no butt-stuff._ She sighed mentally, and pulled her finger out, dragging her nails gently across his ass instead.

Thus reminded of her audience, she pulled her mouth off of Tedd’s cock and rubbed it against her cheek, glancing to the side to take in Susan and Grace. Grace was watching with a lust-filled smile, one hand under the sheet gently rubbing his cock. Susan had shifted positions a little, her legs now spread a little apart, with both hands between her legs, moving slowly. Sarah smiled at them both, then kissed the head of Tedd’s cock and stood up. She gave him a long hard kiss, one hand still gently rubbing his cock.

“Come on, love, I don’t want to finish you off just yet.” She gently pulled him toward the bed by his cock.

“Mwah? Oh. Yeah,” Tedd said, only partially coherent.

Sarah lay down in the bed, and stretched to give Grace a kiss, slipping a hand under the sheets to grab his cock too. “Enjoying the show thus far?” she asked, smiling.

Grace grinned. “Oh, yeah. I think we both are.” His gaze flicked to Susan for a moment.

“Well, I think it’s about to get better,” said Sarah.

Tedd lay down alongside her, and began kissing the back of her neck, one hand gently scratching her behind the ears, the other hand roaming all along the length of her body. He slid his hand down her arm, to join her hand grasping Grace’s cock. Sarah shifted her grip to make room, and watched Grace’s eyes close and his head roll back as she gently tugged on his balls and Tedd slowly stoked the shaft. Grace kicked at the sheet, and pushed it off his body to the foot of the bed. Sarah was gratified to hear a small moan coming from the desk at the unveiling, and her own arousal kicked up a notch.

“Poor Grace, we’ve been neglecting you,” teased Sarah, as she shifted positions to kneel between his legs. As she lowered her head to Grace’s cock, she was momentarily aware that in this position her pussy was fully exposed to Susan, behind her. A flurry of conflicting emotions flickered through her briefly—embarrassment at being so exposed, warring with arousal at the same, and curiosity, wondering if the sight would arouse Susan at all. She slipped her knees a little further apart, both for stability and for increased exposure, and embraced her exhibitionism. As she used one hand to steady herself as she began to lick Grace’s cock, the other hand went between her legs, to stroke her pussy, and brush aside the damp hair that covered her engorged wet inner lips.

Tedd joined her on Grace’s cock, the two of them each taking a side, their lips joined in a sort of kiss with Grace’s cock between them. They moved their heads up and down his length in practiced synchrony, pausing now and again as they came to the top to stop and kiss each other.

“Jeez,” whispered Susan, just barely audible. Sarah glanced back at her.

“What?” she asked curiously, her voice low and sultry.

Susan blushed, and licked her lips, and tried to speak a few times before she managed to get out, “I, uh, didn’t expect guy-on-guy sex to be quite so… hot.”

All three on the bed chuckled at that. In response, Tedd moved closer, and slowly slipped the entire length of Grace’s cock down his throat. Sarah wondered if Susan realized that Grace’s cock was variable in size—that he could, and did, make it slimmer and shorter while they were going down on him, to ease such deep-throat maneuvers. Grace’s entire cock engulfed in his mouth, Tedd’s tongue came out to lick at his balls at the same time, and Grace groaned loudly. Sarah slipped a few stroking fingers inside herself in reaction to that sexy sound, and she heard Susan quietly whimpering behind her, further fueling her arousal.

“Hey,” said Grace, in a husky, lust-filled voice. Sarah glanced up at him. “I still haven’t tasted _you_ ,” he said, with a smoldering smile. Sarah smiled back, and pulled her wet fingers out of her cunt to offer a taste of her nectar to Grace. He greedily licked at her fingers for a moment, pausing to gasp now and then in response to Tedd’s ministrations, then he managed to growl out, “Not enough. I want _more_.” He tugged on her hand, pulling her towards his head.

Sarah happily crawled up the length of Grace’s body, and swung around to kneel over his head, facing Susan and Tedd. She lowered her sopping wet pussy onto his face, and she watched Susan as she did. Susan had abandoned her final shreds of modesty by this point, her legs spread wide and her hand busily stroking her clit. Her attention seemed to be torn between Tedd’s head bobbing up and down on Grace’s cock, and Grace’s tongue lapping at Sarah’s wet cunt.

Sarah watched Susan, her friend’s reaction to the show before her fueling her own arousal, even as she moaned at Grace’s skilled tongue at work between her legs. Her breathing accelerated, and she raised one hand to her breast to pinch her nipple, hard, as Grace pushed her closer to her peak. Susan locked eyes with her, gasping, and Sarah realized that Susan was close to the edge, too, her tiny fingers a blur in her jet-black bush. Sarah had a momentary stray thought that she wished she had binoculars, the better to see Susan with, before Grace sucked hard on her clit, removing all rational thought.

She struggled to keep her eyes open, something she normally didn’t do during orgasm, desperate to watch as Susan responded to Sarah’s arousal with her own orgasm. The little figure on the desk clapped her knees together and pushed her feet down, lifting her ass off the desk, back arched, as her eyes finally closed and she keened a gentle cry of pleasure, that was somehow all the more arousing for being so restrained and quiet. The sight of Susan climaxing finished Sarah, and she came in a shuddering wave of heat, gasping and crying out loud, a wordless shout of joy that echoed in the room in sharp contrast to Susan’s quieter passion.

Sarah collapsed to the side, landing partially on top of Tedd, and lay there gasping and twitching a little with after-shocks to her orgasm. She felt Tedd brush her hair out of her face and caress her cheek, while Grace gently kissed the backs of her knees and thighs. She slowly opened her eyes to look at her lovers, her racing heart gradually slowing, her breath returning to normal.

“I love you guys,” she said quietly, and they both smiled back at her.

“Love you too. _And_ lust you,” said Grace. Sarah chuckled.

She glanced over at the desk, where Susan was likewise recovering from her orgasm. She lay back against the teddy bear in a bone-limp sprawl, breathing heavily. One hand was resting on an upraised knee, the other knee just flopped out to the side as she brushed a long strand of hair out of her face. The spread-leg position allowed Sarah to finally catch a glimpse of Susan’s—well, all right, Little Suze’s—pussy, a tiny slash of soft pink color framed in black hair. Susan seemed to become aware of Sarah’s attention, and she started to pull her legs back together, then she stopped. “Aw, fuck it,” she muttered, barely audible to Sarah, though Grace chuckled in response too.

“In for a penny, in for a pound?” asked Sarah.

Susan ducked her head, looking a little embarrassed, but she gave a shy grin peering up through her bangs at the triad. “Yeah.”

“You are _very_ beautiful when you come,” said Sarah, prompting further blushes from Susan.

“Ah… you too,” Susan said. “Surprisingly so.”

“Surprisingly?” asked Grace curiously.

Susan paused, as if trying to put her thoughts into words. “I’m not attracted to women—but—that kind of passion. Heat. Is sexy, and beautiful, no matter who it’s coming from.”

Sarah chuckled. “In that case, just wait until you see someone you _are_ attracted to coming.”

Susan sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh, yeah…”

Thus reminded of her partners, Sarah slid her head to the side a little, so that she could slip Tedd’s cock back into her mouth. Tedd did likewise with Grace, and Grace pulled Sarah’s legs apart so that he could slide his head between her thighs to gently lick her sex.

They hadn’t yet come up with a satisfactory name for this triad version of 69. Tedd insisted that if two people engaged in simultaneous oral sex was 69, then three people doing the same would be 103.5. Sarah had protested that that just sounded like a lite-rock radio station. If he insisted upon keeping a numerical name, they should just round down to 96. Or maybe call it 696. She tended to think of the maneuver as an "oral triangle." Grace didn’t worry about the terminology so much, and just called the process "a bit distracting, but fun."

Today, Sarah had to admit Grace had a point. She loved the feeling of Grace’s mouth on her, and of Tedd’s cock in her mouth, but the two sensations just warred for attention, and her awareness of Susan pulled her attention in yet a third direction. And Grace’s tongue, though delightful, was not what she wanted in her cunt just then. She felt a delicious ache inside her, that was calling to be filled with cock. She sat up, and slipped sideways a little, breaking the daisy chain of oral activity.

“Enough,” she panted. “I want someone in me. _Now.”_

Tedd and Grace exchanged a silent look, both smirking a little, an oddly male expression. Sarah wasn’t sure how the two of them decided who went where first, but Grace sat up and pulled her to him for a kiss. Tedd wrapped his arms around both of them, kissed them both, then scooted to the head of the bed to lean back against the headboard, obviously relegating himself to the position of observer for the moment.

“How do you want me?” murmured Grace.

“I want you _inside_ me, silly squirrel,” said Sarah.

Grace chuckled, and kissed her neck, running his fingernails gently up and down her back. “I meant, what position?”

“Oh.” She shot a glance at Susan, then said, “Shall we start simple, missionary style?”

“Sounds good.”

Sarah lay back on the bed, and Grace stretched out on top of her. Sarah reached down to spread herself open, and guided the tip of Grace’s cock to her waiting cunt. He smiled, and slowly slid into her. She closed her eyes to focus on the sensation, moaning softly as he filled her up. “Oh, god, love, you feel so _good_ …” She lifted her knees to give him better access, and he slid all the way into her, then paused.

Sarah opened her eyes, to look into Grace’s smiling green eyes, inches away from hers. She kissed him, and wrapped her feet around the backs of his thighs, pulling him closer. “More? Please?” she begged.

“As you wish,” said Grace, and Sarah heard Susan snort at the Princess Bride reference. He began to slide in and out of her, and Sarah closed her eyes again, lost in the bliss of feeling filled by her lover. As Grace picked up the pace a little, Sarah began to whimper in time with his strokes, a raw, uncontrolled sound that she found a little embarrassing when she thought about it, but at the moment she was too lost in the sensation to think about it. She lifted her legs higher, slipping her heels onto Grace’s shoulders in order to allow deeper penetration. She could feel his cock slowly swelling, growing in diameter, stretching her more and more, giving her that lovely sensation of being totally filled that she loved so much.

The excitement of showing off for Susan added to her passion, and in fairly short order she was coming yet again. Her face was twisted in an expression that could easily have been mistaken for pain were it not for her soft litany of “Yes yes yes, oh, like that, oh, fuck me love, fuck me hard, yes…” She clung tight to Grace, wrapping arms and legs around him to pull him as deep into her as she could. “ _Yesss…”_

Grace slowed to a stop after her climax and lay on top of her, panting slightly. Sarah slipped her heels off his shoulders and slowly opened her eyes. She gave Grace a long, deep kiss, ending with them both smiling at each other, nose-to-nose. “Thank you, love,” Sarah said.

“Wow.” Susan’s voice came from the side, and Sarah twisted her head to see that her friend had flown down to sit on the bedside table, watching them with wide eyes. She was less than two feet away, and Sarah could see her more clearly from this close distance. Her face and breasts were flushed red, her nipples hard little points, and her pubic hair was slick with her sexual juices.

“Good show?” asked Sarah a little breathlessly. Susan nodded mutely. Grace shifted, sliding gently in and out of her, and Sarah realized he hadn’t come yet, although she felt as wet as if he had. “Why’d you move?” she asked Susan, curiously.

“The view from back there, it was… um, interesting, in its own way, I guess, watching, uh, Grace’s cock pistoning in and out of you. But I find your faces more interesting. Hotter.”

“Ah.” Sarah glanced up at Tedd, who was watching them with his rock-hard cock in hand.

Tedd said, “No argument here. I enjoy your faces too.” Susan laughed a little, nodding her head.

Sarah reached an arm over her head to grab Tedd’s cock. “Yeah, but show time is over for _you_ , buddy. Time to get back to work.”

“Well, if you insist,” said Tedd, grinning.

“I do.” Sarah pushed gently against Grace’s chest, and he obligingly pushed up and slipped out of her, sitting back on his knees. She whimpered a little at the empty feeling she got from the loss of his lovely cock inside her.

Sarah started to turn over, but got distracted part-way when Susan exclaimed “Good grief!”

Sarah glanced over at Susan, and saw she was staring, wide-eyed, at Grace. More specifically, at Grace’s cock. Sarah looked at what Susan was looking at, and gave a self-conscious giggle. “Oh. Right. I believe I mentioned that Grace has full control over the size of, um, individual body parts?”

“Uh, yeah. You did. But I didn’t… so… _that_ … that was all _inside_ you?” asked Susan, tearing her gaze away from Grace’s cock, blushing furiously.

Sarah had grown used to, and _very_ appreciative of, Grace’s ability to grow the diameter of his cock slowly as they were fucking. She didn’t even think about it too much, during the act, and she hadn’t thought about what it might look like to Susan. She gave Susan an embarrassed smile.

“Um. Yeah. I, uh, might have forgotten to mention. I’m a bit of a size queen. I don’t like ‘em long, but I _love_ a good thick cock.”

Susan’s gaze flicked back to Grace’s cock, and she blushed anew. “Uh, yeah. I can see that.”

“Sorry, Susan, I didn’t mean to startle you,” Grace said. He shrank his cock down in size, until it was back to its starting dimensions. Still rock hard, and glistening wet, but not so intimidating.

“That’s not something you’d have to worry about with a human lover,” said Tedd reassuringly. “Don’t want to scare you.”

Susan shook her head, and took a deep breath. “Right. Yeah, I know, you’re not, um, _typical_ lovers. The fact that Grace is male at the moment is proof enough of that. I just…” She floundered for a moment, then asked Sarah, in a slightly plaintive voice, “Do you _really_ like having that much, that much… inside you?”

Sarah blushed again, but before she could respond, Susan shook her head and looked abashed. “Sorry, sorry, I shouldn’t have phrased it like that. Whatever works for you. It’s your body, sorry.” She bit her lip, then gave a wry smile. “Still. You might have _warned_ me.”

The triad laughed at that. “Yeah. Probably should have,” conceded Sarah. “Sorry. It’s just… it’s something that I find a little embarrassing, and I didn’t think ahead to what it might look like. To an outside observer.”

“If you’d stayed on the desk, you would have noticed the change as it occurred,” said Tedd. “That can be… quite fascinating, in its own right.”

Susan snorted. “Fascinating. Yes, that would be one word for it.”

Sarah looked at Tedd and Grace, and saw that they had both lost a bit of their hard-ons during this conversational diversion. “Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got an inequality I need to address.”

“Inequality?” asked Susan.

“Yeah. I’ve come twice, but neither of my lovers have at all. And that’s just _wrong_ ,” she said, with mock severity. Tedd and Grace both laughed.

Sarah sat up and gave Grace a kiss, grabbing his lovely cock and giving it a few strokes to firm it up as she did. Then she lay down on her stomach and scooted towards Tedd a little to get her face into his lap. She grinned up at him, grabbed his cock, and gave it several long, slow licks. It resumed its lovely fully erect state in short order. She pulled her knees under her, lifting her ass into the air, and glanced back over her shoulder at Grace. She wiggled her ass a little, grinning, and said, “Come and get it, lover.” Susan giggled.

Grace needed no further encouragement, and he slowly slid his cock back into Sarah’s wet cunt. She moaned around a mouthful of Tedd’s cock, causing him to twitch a little in response to the vibrations.

The three of them settled into a familiar rhythm, Grace’s thrusts pushing Sarah’s mouth onto Tedd’s cock in a regular motion. She was feeling warm and mellow, having already come twice, with no burning urgency to come again, and so she was more focused on the other two. She gradually took more and more of Tedd’s cock in her mouth with each thrust, then, taking a deep breath, she pushed through the final inches, bumping her nose up against his abs, his entire cock in down her throat. She tugged gently on his balls, and swallowed repeatedly, massaging his cock with her throat. She wished for a moment that Susan wasn’t there, because she was certain that if she shoved a finger up his ass just then, he’d come like a geyser.

She slowly pulled her mouth off him, and paused for a moment, gasping for breath, then slid back down for another round.

“God,” groaned Tedd. She rolled her eyes up to look at his face, where he was looking at her with a mixture of lust and wonderment. “That is _so_ fucking hot.” Sarah felt smugly proud. She pulled herself slowly off his cock, then gasped as Grace pushed hard into her from behind. She turned her head to the side, resting it on Tedd’s leg, to look at Susan.

Susan was leaning against the bedside lamp, legs wide, with three fingers stuffed into her cunt while a single finger on her other hand rubbed in a slow steady rhythm over her clit. Sarah appreciated the view. From this closer range, more aspects of Susan’s anatomy were apparent. It seemed somehow appropriate to her that Susan’s inner labia were tiny and smooth, a neat pale pink package. Nowhere near as large and florid as Sarah’s own pussy, with its long inner lips and convoluted folds. Sarah made eye contact with Susan, involuntarily licking her lips at the sexy sight in front of her. Susan flushed, but she didn’t hide or break eye contact. Indeed, the finger stroking her clit picked up pace a little, and she whimpered, a quiet, sexy noise.

“I love having you watch me,” Sarah told her friend.

Susan bit her lip, and nodded. “Me too,” she said.

Sarah smiled at her, then turned her attention back to Tedd. “Half a sec,” said Tedd, then he moved so he was on his knees in front of Sarah. Sarah slid his cock into her mouth, and was surprised to hear another sexy moan from Susan.

“Oh, yeah. Like that,” Susan whispered, just barely audible.

Grace chuckled. “You should have told us this was what you wanted to see.”

Grace grabbed Sarah’s hips and gently thrust into her a few times, pushing her forward, until the three of them got synchronized. Sarah rocked back and forth on her hands and knees between them, one lover sliding out of her as the other slid into her. Grace and Tedd barely moved in this position, letting Sarah do most of the work.

This went on for a couple of minutes. Sarah couldn’t deep throat Tedd with this rapid thrusting, but that was okay with her. She liked to taste his cum, which she wouldn’t be able to do if he came while buried deep in her throat. She was getting little dribbles of pre-cum, which she savored.

Grace placed a restraining hand on her back, breaking their rhythm so that the three of them were still for a moment. Sarah could feel Tedd and Grace lean forward to kiss over her back. She pulled her mouth off of Tedd, and wiggled her jaw from side-to-side for a moment to stretch it out. She could hear her loves make happy little moaning noises as they kissed one another, and suddenly she wanted to be kissing them too.

She pulled herself forward, slipping off of Grace’s cock, and slid over so she could sit up on her knees. With Sarah no longer between them, Tedd and Grace moved closer together. The three of them formed a triangle, kneeling on the bed, arms around each other, kissing back and forth between each other.

“Oh, I love you,” Tedd said quietly. Sarah and Grace each kissed him on the cheek, smiling.

“And we love you.”

Sarah ran one hand up and down Grace’s back, scratching lightly. Her other hand resumed its grip on Tedd’s cock, and he groaned as he kissed her.

“And I _want_ you,” he gasped, releasing his hold on Grace’s cock to pull Sarah closer to him.

“You got me,” she said. “ _How_ do you want me?”

“I want to be _in_ you, silly girl,” said Tedd, parallelingSarah’s earlier response to Grace. The others all chuckled at that. He lay back on the bed, stretched out face-up. “Care to go for a ride?”

“I’d love it,” Sarah said. She shifted over to kneel over Tedd, and reached down to position his cock at the entrance of her pussy. She locked eyes with Tedd, as his hands came up to play with her breasts, and slowly, very slowly, lowered herself onto him. He stared back at her, his lovely purple eyes hot with passion, and he bit his lip and moaned softly as she enveloped him. Sarah made a happy purring noise, feeling him fill her, and she slowly began to rock up and down on his cock, loving the feeling of having her beloved inside her.

Grace lay down reclining against the headboard, his legs to the side of Tedd’s head. He stroked his cock, watching Sarah ride Tedd, and said, “You’re _so_ beautiful, my loves.”

Sarah just smiled in response, and continued to ride Tedd. She rubbed her clit with one hand, and moved faster. Tedd reached up and cupped her breasts in his hands, thumbs gently stroking and pinching her nipples. The stimulation sent a new flush of heat through her body, and she moaned and ground herself against Tedd. She shifted her free hand to rest on his chest, and pinched one of his nipples, too.

With a low guttural moan, Tedd thrust his hips up, lifting his ass off the bed completely, burying himself deeper inside Sarah. She bore down on him, trying to get him as deep into her as she could, as her fingers strummed her clit to a fever pitch. She felt his cock swell just a fraction of an inch more, and the throbbing pulse of his cock inside her as he came. She heard a tiny whimper from Susan, and looked over to see the little figure on the nightstand in the throes of another orgasm too. That sight was enough to finally push Sarah over the edge. She came, gasping and shuddering, wordless sounds pouring out of her mouth. Her third orgasm of the day didn’t feel as intense as the first ones, but it felt more full-body. Not centered solely on her genitals, it made her whole body quiver and twitch, nerves alight with stimulation.

She fell forward onto Tedd’s chest even as he collapsed, his ass hitting the bed again, and they lay gasping together for several moments. She idly licked the side of his neck a little as she came down, making him twitch a little more.

She heard the rubbing sounds of Grace’s hand on his cock pick up speed, and his quiet, sexy moan. She lifted her head from Tedd’s neck just in time to see Grace coming, a veritable geyser of cum that sprayed all over his belly and chest; some even hit him on the chin. The white cum made a lovely pattern on his brown skin.

“Oh _my…_ ” Susan said quietly, and Sarah glanced over at her, to see her watching Grace, eyes wide. The sight of Grace coming seemed to ignite additional passion in her, and the fingers working at her clit picked up speed again. She shivered and convulsed and came yet again, panting fast and hard. She rolled over onto her side and curled part way up into a little ball, hand clamped between her legs, whimpering and shuddering. Her wings twitched and buzzed, fluttering in erratic patterns.

“Susan?” said Tedd tentatively, after several long moments of this. Sarah glanced down to see him watching the little fairy doll too, a slightly concerned look on his face.

“Mwah?”

“You okay?” asked Sarah.

“Uh-huh.” The little doll quivered for a few more moments, then she rolled over onto her back, eyes still closed, panting. She flinched, then sat up a little ways to reposition her wings underneath her before flopping back down flat on her back. Her eyes slowly opened, and she gazed at the ceiling for a few moments, eyes unfocused. She seemed to Sarah to be fine, just slowly coming down. Her face and chest were mottled scarlet, a lovely orgasmic flush.

“I—” Susan’s voice cracked, and she paused, cleared her throat, and tried again. “I did mention that I’ve got a bit stronger libido in fairy doll form, right?” Her head rolled bonelessly to the side, and she smiled sardonically at the trio on the bed.

“Yeah. Just a bit,” said Sarah.

“A _teensy-weensy_ little bit,” said Tedd dryly.

“I… wow.” Susan rolled over onto her side, and slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position. She watched Grace, as he sat up and grabbed a handful of tissues from a box on the other bedside stand, to wipe at the cum splashed all over his torso. It took a good half dozen or more to clean up the mess.

Sarah was still straddling Tedd, with his cock still inside her, slowly softening. She pushed herself up on one hand, and with her other hand pulled Grace’s face to hers. She licked the bit of cum off his chin that he’d missed. She heard a muffled squeak from Susan as she licked and swallowed, then kissed Grace. She glanced at Susan and grinned.

“What? I like the way he tastes.”

“Thank you, sweetie,” said Grace, with a grin.

“Uh… you really like it?” Susan asked. She seemed genuinely curious.

“Yes, really. Everyone’s cum tastes different, but I like how Tedd and Grace taste. Not that fond of the taste of my own, when I’m male, but that’s not a real problem, since I don’t give myself blowjobs.”

Susan blinked, and seemed to go a little cross-eyed as she tried to process that mental image. “Okay…”

Sarah dipped a finger into Grace’s navel, where a small puddle of cum had escaped the tissues, then held the finger out to Susan. “You want a taste?” She deliberately didn’t get too close to Susan, in case the thought repelled her, but she let her finger, and the offer, hang in the air for a few moments as Susan stared at it.

Susan stared for a long moment at the glistening droplet on the tip of Sarah’s finger, then she shrugged, relaxing. “Oh, what the hell. It’s not like it’s my real body,” she said. She and Sarah leaned towards each other, and Susan swiped a tiny finger across Sarah’s finger. She held it dubiously up to her nose, sniffed, then extended her tongue and licked her finger.

“Not awful,” she conceded after a moment’s contemplation. “Different. Though I suspect I’d have to be in love with Grace to call it ‘yummy’.”

Sarah laughed, and licked her own finger clean. “Maybe.” She rolled to the side towards Susan, off of Tedd, and snuggled against his side. Grace moved down the bed and cuddled in against Tedd’s other side. Sarah ran a finger across Tedd’s damp, limp cock, and held up it towards Susan. “Want to try Tedd, too?”

Susan shook her head. “Ah… no. Thanks. I think I’m already a bit past my comfort zone.” Her mouth quirked in a little smile. “And besides, that would probably be about a fifty-fifty mix of Tedd and you.” Sarah laughed and nodded in agreement.

Susan took a deep breath and gave a final shudder, her wings rattling briefly behind her. She glanced over her shoulder, then scooted back a little so she could lean against a book on the nightstand. There was no other word for it—she _flopped_ against the book, bonelessly relaxed and loose. Arms stretched out, resting on the book, she sprawled with her legs spread wide, apparently no longer caring about the view she presented. Sarah smiled as she watched her.

“Feel good?” she asked Susan.

Susan arched an ironic eyebrow at her, smiling slightly. “What do you think?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so relaxed in my life.”

“Yeah. Well. That’s another reason I don’t limit myself to just Little Gracie or Little Nase. Asexual fairy dolls may be easier to deal with, but…”

“But they’re not as much fun,” said Grace.

“Yah.”

Tedd asked, curiously, “Do you feel the same endorphin rush in your real body as in the fairy doll?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if you were to return to your real body now, would you feel the same as you do in Little Suze at this moment? That post-orgasmic lethargy and afterglow?”

“Hmm. No. Not completely. I’m certainly more _relaxed_ , when I leave Little Suze. But even though my real body responds to what the fairy doll is doing, or experiencing, it’s nowhere near a one hundred percent correspondence.”

“Do you think your real body orgasms at the same time your fairy doll body does?”

Susan gave Tedd an exasperated look. “I thought Grace said an orgasm would shut your brain _off_ for a while?” Sarah and Grace laughed, and Tedd grinned and blushed.

“Only for a _little_ while,” said Grace.

“Sorry. I just think of these things,” said Tedd.

“I see that.” Susan smiled at Grace and Sarah. “You deal with this all the time?”

“It’s part of what I—we—love about him,” said Sarah.

Susan shook her head, still smiling. “Then I guess it’s a good thing there are two of you to share the load.”

“But, to return to my question?…” Tedd said.

Susan shot him a disbelieving look. “Persistent, aren’t you?”

“Well. Yeah.”

Susan laughed. “Okay, I give.” She looked down at her feet, thinking for a moment, and absently brought her legs together, crossing them at the ankle. “I honestly have no idea if my real body orgasms or not. I mean, I can feel my real body when I’m in fairy doll form, I can ‘check up’ on it without leaving Little Suze entirely. But… when I’m coming, while in fairy doll form, well, that’s not something I’m likely to do. Not sure if I could, really.”

“That makes sense,” said Tedd. “Though you mentioned having to deal with, um, ‘soggy panties’ when you return to your real body. So there’s some connection, right?”

Susan blushed, then shook her head, looking slightly exasperated. “Gah! You’ve just seen me practically catatonic from coming so hard. So why does you asking about my… wet panties, embarrass me?” She ran a hand through her hair, then answered herself. “I guess it’s the disconnect from reality that the fairy doll provides. The wet panties issue deals with the ‘real’ me.” Tedd opened his mouth, and Susan continued, “and before you ask again, _yes_ , the ‘real’ me responds to the fairy doll. I’m just not sure how much.”

“Ah.” Tedd was silent for a moment, digesting this, and Sarah was pretty sure she could predict the next question out of his mouth, based on long exposure to Tedd. “I don’t suppose… would you be willing to have someone monitor—”

“No.” Susan cut him off flatly.

Tedd looked disappointed, but not surprised. “I didn’t mean me, it could be Sarah, or—”

“Still no.” Susan glowered at him.

“I think you’re killing her afterglow, love,” Sarah cut in. “Maybe we can address the more theoretical side of fairy doll sex at a more appropriate time? Later?”

“Right, right. Sorry, Susan. Didn’t mean to be a buzzkill.”

Susan relaxed a little, and smiled again. “It’s all right. It’s just you being you. Sorry if I was a little prickly there.”

“That’s all right. I know I can get a little single-minded at times.”

Sarah rolled out of bed and stretched for a moment before heading to the door. “I need a drink of water. Anyone else?” Everyone else said yes, so she headed to the kitchen and filled three glasses and a small shot glass with water. When she got back, Susan was talking with Grace.

“I have to admit… that was one other thing I kinda wanted to ask you for, but was too embarrassed to ask,” said Susan shyly.

“What, watching me come?” said Grace. “Thanks, sweetie,” he said in aside to Sarah, taking a glass from her.

Susan nodded. “You or Tedd. I was curious. As to what male orgasm, ejaculation, looked like.” She bit her lip, and flushed a little.

“How’d you like it,” asked Sarah, smiling. She set the shot glass down beside Susan.

Susan ducked her head, then lifted it, shooting Sarah a wry grin. “I found it a lot hotter than I’d expected. As you could probably tell.”

“Yeah, there was something about the multiple orgasms that gave it away,” said Tedd. Susan blushed and rolled her eyes. She picked up the shot glass in both hands and took a sip of water.

“Well, I’m glad you enjoyed it too,” said Grace.

Susan shot him a curious look. “But don’t you feel… well, not cheated, I guess, but… wouldn’t you have rather come inside Sarah? Or Tedd? Not just, uh, jerking off?”

Grace shrugged. “Sure, but I’d been aroused for so long at that point, and was so turned on watching _you_ all come, that I could barely hold back. And I didn’t see any real reason why I _should_ hold back.” He grinned. “I’ll get my turn soon enough.”

“Wait, what, there’s more?” asked Susan, sounding surprised. She carefully set the shot glass down.

“Well, we so rarely get a full evening alone together, it seems a shame not to take advantage of it,” said Sarah.

“Give us a little while to recover, and we can play some more,” said Grace.

“Really?”

Tedd chuckled. “Really. For us, at least. You can go home, if you want.”

“No… no, if you don’t mind my being here, I’m still interested, still, um…” Susan stammered to a halt.

“Horny?” asked Grace.

Susan blushed. “Yeah.” She blew out a breath, and brushed her hair out of her face. “My libido when in fairy doll form seems to be a bit… Brobdingnagian,” she said wryly.

The other three burst out laughing at that descriptor. “Lilliputian would seem more appropriate, wouldn’t it?” asked Grace.

“You’d think,” said Susan. She glanced at the triad, then said tentatively, “Just checking in. Do you mind if I stay here? I’m not… getting in the way, or anything, am I?”

Sarah, Grace, and Tedd glanced at each other, and they all shrugged a little.

“Doesn’t bother me,” said Tedd. “As long as my incessant questions don’t scare you off.” Susan snorted.

“I’m rather enjoying you being here,” said Grace.

“Me too. I’d really like you to stay, if you want,” said Sarah.

“Oh.” Susan looked shyly pleased. “Thanks. I guess I’ll stick around a while, then.”

“So… what next?” asked Sarah, running a hand through Grace’s lovely thick hair. Grace smiled and purred.

“How about a game of strip poker?” suggested Tedd.

Grace laughed, and Sarah gave Tedd a bemused look. “We’re all already naked,” she pointed out, somewhat redundantly.

“Well, it’ll be a short game, then.”

Sarah laughed, and Susan giggled, making Sarah laugh even more.

“That… that’s something I hadn’t imagined, before today,” said Susan wonderingly, as their laughter trailed off.

“What is?” asked Grace.

“That sex could be funny. Fun-funny, I mean, not just laughing-with-nervous-tension-funny.”

Sarah, Grace, and Tedd all smiled at that. “If you can’t laugh in bed, with the people you love, where _can_ you laugh?” asked Grace.

“If we’re looking for the next thing to do… there _is_ one other thing we thought we could offer you,” Sarah said to Susan.

“Offer me?” asked Susan.

“Tedd just thought of it earlier today. I don’t know if you’d like this but…” Sarah paused, suddenly feeling bashful. Which, given everything that Susan had just watched her doing, was all kinds of surprising.

Grace, as usual, had no such problem.

“Tedd still has a recording of your form on file. Would you like one of us to transform into you, so you could watch yourself having sex?” asked Grace.

“Uh…” Susan stared blankly at them for a long frozen moment, then the fairy doll went lifeless and stiff, freezing into place on the bedside table as Susan departed.

All three of them stared at the doll for a surprised moment, then Tedd said hesitantly, “I guess that’s a no?”

Sarah sighed and shook her head. “I was afraid that might freak her out.”

“Then why did you ask her?” asked Tedd, sounding a little annoyed. “Things had been going so well up till now.”

“Because I also thought there was a good chance she’d really like the idea. It was kinda fifty-fifty in my mind, which way she’d go, and she’d been getting more relaxed as the day went on.” Sarah rolled over to the side of the bed and sat up. She picked up the doll, and straightened out its limbs.

“I’m sorry that idea scared her,” said Grace sadly.

“Me too,” said Sarah. “I had hoped it might be not only sexy, but also kinda therapeutic for her. Seeing herself being touched.” She gently brushed the doll’s long hair into place. She stood up, planning to retrieve its unitard from the dresser where Susan had dropped it. But before she could move, the doll quivered in her hand, and the plastic became flesh.

“What the hell?” exclaimed Susan.

“Sorry! Sorry!” said Sarah, and she hastily set Susan back down on the bedside table. “I thought you were gone for good. I was just going to dress the doll.”

Susan stood, brushing her hands over her body, as if trying to wipe away the sensation of Sarah’s hand holding her. “That… that was just _weird_ ,” she said. “Being held by a hand the size of my torso.”

“Sorry,” Sarah repeated. “But I didn’t think you were coming back.” She flushed a little at the tactile memory of Susan’s body in her hand. The feeling had been a bit odd from her side, too. But also, somewhat sexy. Intriguingly soft, in certain places. She sat back down on the edge of the bed.

Susan lifted an arm to her nose, and sniffed, her nose wrinkling. “And now I smell like sex.”

Sarah snorted. “Sorry. I haven’t had a chance to wash my hands yet.” Susan grimaced, and shuddered a little.

“Are you okay?” asked Grace gently.

Susan looked up at Grace, and sighed. “Yeah. Sorry for freaking out on you like that. I probably should have called ‘banana’ before disappearing.”

“It was hardly a freak-out from this side,” said Tedd. “You just vanished, and Little Suze went still.”

Susan nodded. “Right. Well.” She stared at the triad for a moment, then sat down, cross-legged, curling her tail around her body to fig-leaf her crotch. “About your offer…” she began, then stopped and looked a little embarrassed.

“‘No thanks’ is a perfectly acceptable response,” said Sarah. “I’m sorry if that was too strange an idea to just spring on you like that.”

Susan shook her head. “It wasn’t that. To tell the truth”—she gave a sudden sharp grin—“in the interest of honest and open communication—the thought had occurred to me, before. But I was too embarrassed to suggest it.”

“Oh,” Tedd said, sounding surprised.

“And also… the more I thought about it, the more I thought of different conditions that I’d need to feel comfortable doing that, and I didn’t want to feel like I was dictating terms to you.”

“Conditions?” asked Grace. “Like what?”

Susan grimaced. “I really don’t want to impose—”

“ _We’re_ free to say ‘no’ too,” Sarah reminded her. “If we can’t live with whatever you need to be comfortable.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Susan brushed a long strand of hair back behind her ear, and looked pensive. “Well… for starters, I don’t think I’d feel comfortable watching my doppelgänger having sex with one of you. The real yous, I mean.”

“You mean, you’d want the other partners to be using different bodies too?”

“Yeah. And, partner, singular. I’m not… I have difficulty imagining myself doing this in the first place. I know you’re a triad, but… I’d want anything with my double to be just one-on-one.”

“What do you imagine the third person would be doing?” asked Grace curiously.

“Um…” Susan looked uncertain.

“If it was me, I could be sitting with Susan, watching,” said Sarah. _Providing emotional support,_ she thought. _And/or polishing the pink pearl…_

“Or it could be me,” said Tedd, “I’m happy just watching, as long as I got a chance to play later on. With non-Susan form lovers.”

“Actually…” said Sarah slowly. “Now that I think about itsome more, if I wasn’t playing the part of Susan, I’d _want_ to sit it out.” She smiled at Susan. “I love you, but I don’t think I’d be comfortable making love _to_ ‘you’. Even if I looked like Jason D. Poit or someone else at the time.”

“Ah. Yeah, I can see that,” said Susan.

“So… that’s Sarah-as-Susan with either Tedd or myself, or else it’s Tedd with me, in whichever combination,” said Grace.

“Uh. Yeah.” Tedd looked thoughtful.

“Did you think of any other conditions, for this to work for you?” asked Sarah.

Susan shook her head. “Nothing we haven’t already discussed. Straight, not lesbian, and no anal play.”

Sarah looked at Grace and Tedd. They both looked thoughtful, not immediately rejecting the notion. “What do you think, guys?” she asked.

Grace smiled and said, “I’m comfortable with whatever you guys want. I’d be happy to watch, or play along, in whatever role.”

Sarah nodded, unsurprised. “Tedd?”

Tedd was a little slower answering. “I think… I’m with you on this, now that you’ve brought it up. If I’m not playing Susan, I’d be more comfortable sitting it out.”

Sarah was a little surprised at that. She exchanged a glance with Susan.

“So that means it would be either me or Sarah as Susan, with Grace as some random dude,” continued Tedd. Everyone laughed at that.

“Some random dude?” said Grace. “I hope we can do better than _that_. Do you have any particular person you’d like to see with you?” she asked Susan. “A particular fantasy, or daydream, someone you think you’d like to make love with?”

“Ah…” Susan glanced up at Sarah, then blushed and looked away.

“No. Sorry, not that,” said Sarah flatly.

“I didn’t ask!” said Susan indignantly. “I _wouldn’t_ have asked.”

Sarah snorted. “Yeah, but I knew what you were thinking.”

“ _Thinking_ it, but I didn’t _say_ it.”

Grace and Tedd looked puzzled. “Uh, you guys want to let us in on this telepathic conversation?” Tedd asked.

Sarah looked at Susan, figuring it was her choice to expand on what they had been talking about. To her surprise, Susan chose to answer Tedd’s question.

“I… once had a bit of a crush on…” She sighed, and closed her eyes. “Elliot.”

“Oh.” Tedd looked surprised, but not very.

Grace smiled. “I always thought so,” he said. Susan shook her head, and looked resigned.

“Right, but I’m _not_ going to sit here watching my ex fuck my best friend,” said Sarah firmly. “Even if it _is_ just their clone forms.”

Everyone stared at her, startled and slightly wide eyed, and Sarah blushed. “Sorry,” she muttered.

“I _said_ I wouldn’t have asked,” said Susan. “You have to know I’d never ask that of you. I’m not that insensitive.”

Sarah sighed, and nodded, a bit shame-faced. “I know you wouldn’t, sweetie. I’m sorry I snapped.” She reached out to pat the little fairy doll on the head, then stopped herself as Susan shied away a little. Instead, she placed her hand on the nightstand beside Susan. Susan reached over and patted one of Sarah’s fingers with her tiny hand, and Sarah smiled.

“So, who else might you like to see yourself in bed with?” asked Grace.

Susan looked thoughtful for a moment, then gave a small smile. “I… don’t suppose you’ve ever copied Malcolm Reynolds? That is, Firefly-era Nathan Fillion?”

Sarah perked up a little at that. “Ooh, okay, _now_ I want to play Susan.” Tedd and Grace laughed.

“No, I haven’t,” said Grace. “But if we pull up some visual references from Google, and spent a little while tweaking and refining it, I bet I could come close.”

“Well, what other pop-culture figures have you copied, and could do without having to spend time on research? Male ones, I mean,” asked Susan.

Grace looked thoughtful for a moment. “Well, there’s Jason D. Poit, of course. As well as Daniel Radcliffe, Tom Hiddleston, Oscar Isaacs, Kit Harington, Eddie Redmayne, David Tennant, John Boyega, and the Chrises Evans, Pratt, and Hemsworth, off the top of my head.”

Susan laughed. “I’m sensing a trend here.”

Grace smiled. “Anything there appeal to you?”

Susan hesitated, then smiled bashfully. “Uh… Kit Harington?”

Grace grinned. “Lithe, dark and brooding, eh?” Without further ado, Grace’s form shimmered and shifted, and the form of the slim, wild-maned actor appeared on the bed. Sarah felt her pulse pick up a little, contemplating Grace in this form, and she noticed Tedd looked a little wide-eyed too.

“So… you want to flip a coin for it?” Sarah asked Tedd.

Tedd started, and glanced at Sarah, then Susan. “Ah… how about we ask Susan what she wants?”

“What? Oh. Right.” Sarah looked at the little figure on the beside table. “You have a preference for who plays you, and who’s sitting it out? Sitting _with_ you, if that’s okay?”

Susan tore her gaze away from Grace, and looked up at Sarah. “Sitting with me?”

Sarah shrugged. “We like to watch, too.” She grinned. “Who would you like to masturbate with you?”

“Oh! Ah, when you put it that way…” Susan glanced at Tedd, and looked a little guilty. “Uh, I’m sorry, Tedd, but—I don’t think I’d be comfortable, ah, hanging out with you. In that way. Just yet.”

Tedd’s expression flickered just a little, before he grinned back at Susan. Sarah suspected he was a little bit hurt or disappointed by her rejection, but not actually surprised. “That means I get to _be_ you?” he said. “Sounds good to me. I love your hair.” He reached toward the side-table, and pulled open the drawer just under where Susan was sitting. He pulled out a transformation watch, and strapped it on.

Susan laughed, a little nervously. “You planned ahead on this.”

Tedd shrugged. “I figured, if you said yes to this idea, we wouldn’t want to take time to muck about in my lab first.” Then he paused, and looked at Susan. “I’m sorry, we’re just plowing ahead with this. Is this something you _want_ to do? Want _us_ to do?”

Susan didn’t respond immediately. She took a deep breath, then stood up and launched herself into the air. She flew a loop around the room, before coming back to hover in front of Tedd. She glanced at Grace, then shook her head with a small smile and said, “Grace, would you mind just being yourself for the moment? Kit is extremely… distracting.”

Grace laughed, and shifted to her natural squirrel-human self.

“Thanks.” Susan paused a second, looking at Grace, then she shook her head. “That’s weird. I’ve never thought of you as ‘naked’ in furry form, before. But… _now_ you look naked to me. For some reason.” Grace grinned, and stretched sensuously on the bed.

“Maybe because she’s surrounded by naked people?” suggested Tedd. Grace smiled and wrapped her huge tail around to the front of her torso, "modestly" covering herself.

“I guess.” She took a deep breath, and looked at Tedd and Sarah. She landed on the edge of the dresser, then sat with her legs hanging over the edge, looking down a little at the triad on the bed.

“So. Do I want to do this? Yeah. I do. But… it’s as much curiosity as voyeurism, I think. I’m not sure if it’ll be at all arousing to me, or just interesting.”

Grace and Sarah and Tedd all glanced at each other, then Sarah said, “Well, there’s one way to find out.”

“Is there anything specific you wanted us to do?” asked Grace. “Did you have a script or scenario in mind?”

“Scenario? No, not really. Honestly, I find it hard to imagine at all, so… I guess I’ll leave it up to you.” She paused a moment, considering, then amended, “Maybe, just keep it simple?”

“Okay.” Sarah got up off the bed, and grabbed the comforter from where it had puddled on the floor. She folded it over a couple of times and then draped it over Grace’s desk chair, to make it a little more comfortable. She glanced at Susan, and bit her lip. “Um. _Do_ you mind? If I masturbate too? They usually put on a pretty good show.”

Susan blushed, but shook her head. “Saying that I mind would be all kinds of hypocritical, I think.”

“Not really. It would just mean that you’re human, not Vulcan, and thus occasionally irrational,” said Tedd.

Susan gave him a mock glare through her blush. “You take that back! I am too a Vulcan.” Tedd laughed.

Sarah glanced up at Susan, sitting on the dresser. “You want the teddy bear up there to lean against?” she asked.

“Thanks,” said Susan. “That’d be nice.”

Sarah moved the stuffed animal from the desk to the dresser, and braced it in place with a couple of books behind it. Susan leaned back against it, fluttering her wings a bit to settle them into a comfortable position.

Sarah sat down and made herself comfortable. She glanced over at Susan. The top of the dresser was just about her head level when sitting down. She was grateful for that. She’d been afraid she wouldn’t be able to see Susan from this angle, but she could see her just fine.

Sarah looked back at the bed, to see Tedd leaning in close to Grace, the two of them conversing sotto voce. After a few moments, Tedd nodded, then glanced at Susan and Sarah, and smiled.

“Just scripting a little,” he said.

Grace got out of bed and left the room. Susan and Sarah exchanged bemused looks, and Sarah shrugged. “Wait and see,” she said.

Tedd stood up and looked at Susan. He put his finger on the watch’s button. “Ready?” he asked.

Susan took a deep breath, then nodded. “Ready.”

Tedd closed his eyes and pressed the button, and there was a shimmer of magical energy as his form blurred and elongated, shooting up to Susan’s height as he assumed her form. When she opened her eyes, Susan’s blue eyes looked back out at them, not Tedd’s purple ones. Tedd took off the watch, placed it back in the bedside table drawer, and slid it shut.

“Wow.” Susan stared at Tedd, in her body, with wide eyes. “Is that… is that _really_ what I look like?” she asked.

“Yup,” said Sarah. “Beautiful, aren’t you?”

“Uh… if you say so.” Susan shook her head, as if to clear it. “Mostly, it’s a little surreal.”

Tedd cocked her head curiously. “You’ve seen Nanase in your form before.”

“Yeah, but not naked. It… it makes a difference. For some reason.”

Tedd ran her hands down the length of her body, then tossed her head to the side, whipping the long cascade of black hair around her. She grinned. “It’s been a while since I’ve been in a body with hair this long.” She shook her head back and forth gently a few times. “Do you ever get used to it tickling your butt?”

“I, uh, don’t usually spend that much time naked. And I put it up in a bun before I shower, most days.”

“Hmm.” Tedd pirouetted a couple of times, apparently just for the joy of the hair whipping around her body. The motion caused her breasts to bounce in a fashion that Sarah found pleasantly distracting. Tedd stopped spinning and grinned. “Thanks for letting me try this,” she said. Her hair was wrapped around her in a wild disarray, in a messy fashion that Sarah had never seen in real life on Susan. The cloak of hair almost made her look clothed, or at least fig-leafed, but the illusion of modesty was ruined by the rosy pink tips of her erect nipples peeking out between strands of hair. Sarah glanced at the fairy doll, wondering how Susan felt about all this.

“Sure. Sure.” Susan said to Tedd. She still looked a little gob-smacked, looking at her full-sized body on display in front of her.

“I do have one embarrassingly personal question,” Tedd said, as she tried to brush the long hair out of her face. “But it’s germane to our activities.”

“Yes?” Susan’s expression became a little wary.

“Am I going to… I mean, do you… is your hymen intact? I just want to be forewarned, if there’s going to be any pain.”

“Oh. No, I don’t have one.”

“Oh, good.” Tedd looked relieved. She continued to run her fingers through her hair, trying to finger-comb it back into some semblance of order. She yelped a little as her fingers got hung up on a knot. “Okay, this hair is fun, but it’s also a bit of a pain. How do you deal with it?”

“Well, I don’t spin around in wild circles all that often, for starters,” said Susan dryly. Sarah giggled.

Susan watched Tedd for a few moments longer, then shook her head, smiling faintly. “I know that you’re not me, but it’s still really weird, watching you, Tedd.” Tedd chuckled, and nodded, while still working on her hair.

Tedd finished, or perhaps gave up on, combing out her hair, and sat down on the bed. She tried to flip her hair to the side with a toss of her head, but she didn’t succeed in moving the huge mass of long hair very far.

Susan snorted. “That takes a bit of practice,” she said.

Tedd brushed the hair to the side by hand, instead, then looked at Susan. “You ready to start?”

“Assuming you still want to do this,” added Sarah.

“Uh, yeah. I do. I am. Whatever, yes, let’s go.”

Tedd nodded, then lay down in the bed, her back to Susan and Sarah, and she pulled the sheet up over her body. She looked like she was trying to sleep, or pretending to sleep, but after a moment, she murmured something under her breath, which Sarah suspected was a cue to Grace, outside of the room.

The door to the room opened, and Grace, shifted to the form of Kit, slipped in, wearing Tedd’s bathrobe. It was a little short on him, but it had the advantage of allowing Sarah to focus her attention on his lovely face for the moment, instead of getting distracted by his body. Grace paused for a moment, just looking at Tedd, then he slowly smiled, a gentle loving look, and he approached the bed.

Tedd rolled over and stretched, as if waking up. Sarah suddenly hoped that they hadn’t tried to script too much of a scenario to play out; Tedd was a mediocre actor at best.

“Welcome home, love,” said Tedd.

Grace smiled, and peeled off his robe. Sarah missed his reply to Tedd’s greeting, temporarily distracted by his firm muscular ass and back. _Damn, I want to play with Grace in that form sometime… Wuff!_

Grace sat down on the edge of the bed, and Tedd sat up, smiling, the sheet dropping away from her breasts as she did. Sarah admired her anew. She was a little surprised at how sexy she found the view. She didn’t find _Susan_ sexually attractive, but, because it was actually Tedd, she found that Susan’s _body_ was attractive.

 _Very_ attractive.

Sarah let her hand drop to her lap, and her fingers slipped through her bush to gently tease herself as she watched the couple in front of her. They were murmuring loving words of greeting and kissing, sounding and acting much like Tedd and Grace would normally with each other. Sarah was relieved; it wasn’t a complicated scenario, that Tedd could mess up with her lousy acting. _Keep it simple. Right._

She wanted to look and see how Susan was responding to the scene in front of them, but she felt oddly bashful about it. For some reason, being seen masturbating seemed more embarrassing than being seen fucking. _Later. I’ll check in on her in a few minutes_ , she told herself. _Give her a little time to get into it._

This was the first time she’d watched Tedd and Grace from a remove, like this. She’d often watched the two of them making love, of course, but always when she was in bed (or on the couch, or on the floor…) with them. Never set apart, purely a spectator. Even though they weren’t wearing their own forms, their love and affection for each other was deeply apparent, in their gentle caresses and quiet murmurs of affection as they kissed and stroked and mutually seduced one another. Watching them, Sarah felt a growing warmth, not just the heat of lust, but also of love. “Oh, you’re so beautiful. I love you so much,” she whispered, barely a breath, but she was sure Grace at least would hear her. Indeed, he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, and he smiled and pursed his lips, blowing her a little kiss.

She watched them for a few minutes more, utterly enthralled, a single finger absently sliding over her clit as she did. She forgot about the little fairy doll on the dresser for the moment, until Susan spoke. A single word, so quiet that it was barely audible.

_“Banana.”_

Sarah didn’t register it at first, but Grace did. He broke off from going down on Tedd to turn around and look at Susan. His motion reminded Sarah of Susan’s presence, and her brain finally processed what her ears had barely heard. She looked at the little figure of her friend.

Susan had pulled her knees up to her chest, and was sitting with her arms wrapped around her legs. Her chin was resting on her knees, and she was staring at Tedd and Grace, looking a little forlorn.

“Susan? What’s wrong?” asked Sarah. She felt a rush of guilt, that Susan’s mood and posture could have changed so drastically without her noticing it. _Gah! So much for providing emotional support_ , she scolded herself. She stood up and took a step over to the dresser, and was joined by Grace and Tedd.

“You okay, Susan?” asked Grace.

Susan just barely moved her head, a little shake _no,_ as she stared at Tedd, at her own body. “Tedd, would you mind… just not being me right now?” she asked quietly.

“Of course,” said Tedd. She closed her eyes, and her form blurred and shifted back to her androgynous female self. Sarah was a little surprised that Tedd didn’t revert to his baseline normal male body. Beside her, without prompting, Grace shifted back to her normal furry self.

“Thanks. Sorry,” said Susan.

“Sorry about what?” asked Grace. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

Sarah placed a hand on the dresser beside Susan, just to be near her. She wished she could pat her on the head or something to convey concern, but she didn’t want to scare her.

Susan sighed, and turned her head to the side to lay it on her knees. “That all just hit a little too close to home. I… well, I thought it might be a little disturbing to watch, but I thought it would be worth it. That I could handle it.” She shrugged. “I guess not.”

“What was disturbing?” asked Tedd gently. “Seeing ‘yourself’ touching someone else?”

“Yeah—no. I mean, not specifically that.” She sighed again, and the little form seemed to slump a little in place. She released her hold on her knees and shifted into a cross-legged sitting position, tail once again wrapped around her waist. She looked up at the three standing before her. “I was watching you two, seeing ‘myself,’ and wondering how long it will be before that’s something that happens in reality? Will I ever date, meet someone, fall in love?” She shook her head. “I felt a little bit of that while watching the three of you, but it was overwhelmed by the sheer sexiness of it all. Watching ‘myself’… wasn’t as sexy. Not voyeuristic. So all those feelings came to the forefront.”

Sarah stared at the little figure, and sighed herself. “I _really_ wish I could give you a hug right now.”

Susan gave a little laugh. “Me too, oddly enough.” She stared at Sarah, a sad smile on her face. Sarah stared back, not sure what to say. She hoped the expression on her face managed to convey some of the love and appreciation she felt for her friend. She turned the hand beside Susan palm-up, as if to offer her… something. Solace. Comfort. Belief.

Susan looked down at the hand beside her, and slowly stood up. Glancing back up at Sarah’s face, she stepped deliberately into her palm. A flicker of Susan’s familiar determination passed across her tiny face in a fey little grin that was there, then gone. “Care to give it a try?” she asked.

Sarah fought down a moment’s nervousness, fear she might inadvertently hurt the little figure. _It’s just a doll body, she’ll leave it if anything bad happens_ , she reassured herself. Slowly, gently, she brought Susan’s fairy doll to her chest. Susan spread her arms wide, as if for a hug, and Sarah nestled her between her breasts, the dark-haired head resting at the hollow of her throat. Susan relaxed into the "embrace", slumped against Sarah’s sternum, then she dropped her arms. She folded her wings in tight around herself and slid down into a sitting position in Sarah’s palm, leaning against Sarah. Sarah brought her other hand up to carefully wrap it around Susan’s body, and cupped her to her chest as she might a kitten. Only the back of Susan’s bowed head, and her shoulders, were visible. Susan took a deep deliberate breath, held it a moment, then breathed out and relaxed into Sarah’s grasp even further.

Sarah glanced over her shoulder for the chair, then stepped back and slowly sat back down, trying not to jar Susan as she did. Grace grabbed the back of the chair and placed a hand on Sarah’s back to steady her as she sat. “Thanks, sweetie,” murmured Sarah. She looked up from the little figure in her hands to Tedd and Grace, who were silently watching, eyes wide. She bobbed her head at them, grateful that they were letting her deal with this for the moment, then looked back to Susan.

The little doll began to shake in her hands. Sarah at first thought she was shivering with cold, but after a moment she realized Susan was silently crying. She heard a quiet, pained noise from Grace, as her empathetic girlfriend also realized what was happening.

Without even thinking about it, Sarah began to gently rock back and forth, barely moving. “Shh, shh, it’s all right,” she whispered to the little figure in her hands, “let it out. I’m here. I love you. It’s all right…”

Susan cried for almost a full minute, silent the whole time, before the tremors that shook her body trailed off. Sarah half expected Susan to raise her head and apologize for the tears, but instead, her breathing deepened and slowed even further and she slumped bonelessly in Sarah’s hands. Sarah realized after a startled moment that Susan had fallen asleep.

“Did she go back to her body?” asked Tedd quietly.

Sarah shook her head minutely.

“I think she’s asleep,” whispered Grace, who could undoubtedly hear the fairy doll’s quiet breaths. Sarah nodded gently.

Tedd’s eyes went wide, looking startled, and she blinked several times. Sarah could almost hear the questions lining up in her mind, about why Susan’s consciousness didn’t return to her real body when she fell asleep and the like, but, thankfully, Tedd kept them to herself.

“I think tonight has been emotionally exhausting for her, as well as physically,” said Grace quietly. Sarah nodded, looking down at the top of Susan’s head. She felt a spreading warmth of affection for her friend, and wished she could always hold her close and keep her safe. She smiled gently at her, then looked back up at her lovers. “Thank you,” she whispered to them, and they both smiled and nodded back.

Grace and Tedd moved back to the bed, and leaned against the pillows piled at the headboard, pulling the sheet up over themselves. The two of them snuggled together, watching Sarah and Susan, and Sarah was amused to note that Tedd’s eyes began drifting shut too. Grace, however, was intently focused on Susan, and wide awake. Sarah kept her attention on Susan, still rocking gently back and forth.

Susan slept for less than five minutes, jerking awake with a startled snort and toss of her head. “What—where—what’s that— _oh._ ”

Sarah slowly lowered the hand she’d cupped around Susan’s body, alert to catch her if she was disoriented enough to fall out of Sarah’s hand. But Susan shook her head once, then sat up straight and looked around. She glanced up at Sarah’s face. “Thanks.”

Sarah smiled back. “Of course.”

Susan rubbed her nose, then shifted into a cross-legged position sitting on Sarah’s hand, facing out. “It’s a good thing I’ve gotten used to the smell of sex. Because being cupped in your hands like that…”

Sarah and Grace laughed, and Tedd came awake with a little start at the sound.

“How’re you doing, sw—Susan?” asked Grace, echoing all of their concerns.

“I’m… okay.”

“Really?” asked Sarah.

Susan stared at the floor for a few moments, thinking, then she looked back up at Sarah and nodded. “Yeah. Really.” She looked at Sarah for a moment longer, then asked, “Can you set me down on the nightstand again? I want to be able to see all of you at once without getting a crick in my neck.”

“Sure.” Sarah got up and set Susan down, then grabbed the comforter from the chair before joining Tedd and Grace on the bed.

“Would you mind grabbing my unitard, too, while you’re up?” asked Susan.

“No prob.” As Sarah spread the comforter out on the bed and snuggled under it with her lovers, Susan pulled on the fairy doll’s garment. She finished adjusting a sleeve, then looked up at the triad. “I’m sorry—”

“I’m sorry—” began Sarah at the same moment. They both stopped, and Tedd chuckled.

“Go ahead,” said Sarah to Susan.

Susan sank back down into a sitting position, and stared at them, chewing on her lower lip. Then she sighed, and began. “I’m sorry for the waterworks. I guess I should have known I couldn’t deal with watching that—”

Tedd made a scoffing sound and cut her off. “What, you have so much experience with watching your clone forms that you should know how you’ll react to different scenarios? Uh, no. I don’t think so.”

Susan grimaced. “Well, no, but—”

Sarah interrupted. “Sweetie, if anyone should be apologizing, it’s me. I’m the one who suggested we try that in the first place.”

“Well, if you’re going to be assigning blame, I _thought_ of it first,” said Tedd. “Not that I think we should be assigning blame.” Grace nodded.

“It was an experiment. I think—I _hope_ —we can agree most of this evening was a wonderfully _successful_ experiment,” said Grace.

“And how,” said Tedd. Susan gave a little nod.

Grace continued. “It’s no one’s _fault_ that the last scenario stirred up such strong emotional responses. It’s… it just _is._ It happened. Let’s deal with it, learn from it, not try to take or assign blame for it.”

“Listen to the wise squirrel,” said Tedd. Sarah and Susan both laughed a little at that.

Susan nodded. “Okay. No blaming.”

“But, really, you’re doing all right?” asked Sarah worriedly.

Susan’s posture loosened, and she smiled, this time a more relaxed and warm smile. “Yeah. Really. Thank you. Your holding me…” she trailed off, blushing. “I’m not sure I can describe how that felt. Safe. Warm.” She hesitated a moment, then added quietly, “Loved.”

Sarah reached out slowly, and traced a gentle finger down the side of Little Suze’s face. This time, Susan didn’t flinch away. “You are, you know. Loved. You’ve been my best friend for ages. And… I know you. You’re smart, and determined, and strong. You’ll find a way to get what you want. One way or the other.”

Susan nodded. “Thanks.” She took a deep breath, and said, “But mostly what I’m feeling right now is tired. I think I’m ready to call it a night, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” said Grace.

“We just want to make sure you’ll be okay once you’re back home, alone,” said Sarah.

Susan nodded. “Yeah. I’m sure. I just want to take a shower and a bath and hit the sack.”

“Shower _and_ a bath?” asked Tedd.

Susan waved a hand in front of her face, as if fanning away fumes. “Little Suze can take a bath in the bathroom sink while I take a shower.” She rolled her eyes. “Soggy panties probably doesn’t even _begin_ to cover the state my real body is in at this point…” They all laughed.

“Can we all get together tomorrow afternoon, at your place, to talk about this some more?” asked Sarah.

Susan looked embarrassed. “That’s not really necessary. Honest, I’m fine.”

“Not just for you. For my sake, too.”

“Oh.”

“And me,” put in Tedd.

“And me,” said Grace.

Susan held up her hands in surrender. “All right, all right. I work tomorrow evening, so it’ll have to be early afternoon. One o’clock okay with you?”

Sarah, Tedd, and Grace exchanged looks, nodding. “Sure,” said Grace.

“Okay.” Susan stood up, fluttered her wings a moment, then looked intently at the triad. “Thank you. For everything. You’re right, the first part of the evening _was_ a successful experiment. Thanks for being willing to do this with me.”

“And thank you, too,” said Sarah. Tedd and Grace nodded.

“See you tomorrow.” Without further ado, Little Suze disappeared with a little _pop_ of displaced air.

Sarah leaned back against Tedd and Grace, and they spent a moment rearranging themselves to cuddle more comfortably.

“Well,” said Sarah.

“Well?” asked Grace.

“I… think that worked? Fantasy fulfilled, or explored, without damaging our friendships?”

Grace nodded.

“Yeah, I think so, too,” said Tedd.

“But we’ll check up on it tomorrow, to be sure,” added Grace.

“And later on.”

“Of course.”

 

 

### EPILOGUE

 

Sarah noted that this time, at least, when Susan answered the door to the triad, she wasn’t blushing.

As they entered, Sarah paused to look intently at Susan, trying to ascertain her mental state. Not only was she not blushing, she was smiling and looking more relaxed than Sarah had seen her (in real life) in ages. Nowhere near the boneless post-orgasmic sprawl that she’d exhibited the night before, of course, but much mellower than was her usual mien.

Sarah smiled in response to Susan’s smile and mood, and without thinking about it, she pulled Susan into a hug without asking her first. Susan barely flinched, and didn’t pull away. The tiny flinch made Sarah realize what she’d done, but by that point Susan was actually hugging her back. Sarah felt herself relax, a last little pocket of fear that they might have caused irreparable damage to their friendship melting away.

They clung to each other for a minute, then pulled apart, smiling. Sarah wiped a few stray tears out of her eyes. “Hey,” she said hoarsely to Susan.

“Hey yourself.”

“Hey,” said Grace. “Can I get in on that hug action too?”

Susan gave a little laugh, and said, “Sure.” Their hug didn’t last as long as Sarah’s had, but Grace looked incredibly pleased when they broke apart. She grabbed Susan’s hands as they parted, and gave them a little squeeze before letting go.

Susan shot a sideways glance at Tedd and gave a wry little grin. “I suppose you want in on this, too?”

Tedd smiled back. “Only if you don’t mind.” He paused. “Um. I can shift to female first, if you’d prefer.”

Susan shrugged. “Only if you want to. You’re you, no matter what the body.”

Tedd gave her a long look, then said, “Thanks. That means a lot to me.” Then he closed his eyes for a moment, and shifted to her female form. Opening her eyes, she looked at Susan and opened her arms invitingly, but didn’t advance on her. Susan stepped into the hug, and they embraced briefly.

“Why did you shift?” asked Susan curiously, as they pulled apart.

Tedd shrugged. “You said I could if I wanted to. And I wanted to; at the moment, I’m feeling female.”

“Ah. Okay.”

They all headed downstairs to the TV room again. Sarah walked behind the other three, smiling to herself. They needed to talk, to process things, yes. But those three hugs, those unprecedented hugs, spoke volumes to her about the state of Susan’s mind, and the state of their friendships.

When they got downstairs, Sarah ducked into the powder room at the foot of the stairs to pee. When she came out a couple of minutes later, the other three were already discussing something. She sat down next to Tedd and listened a moment, trying to figure out the topic of conversation. Her eyes went wide.

“Uh, wait a minute, wait a minute. What do you mean, ‘the _next time_ ’?”

 

 

 

 


	5. Honeypot

Sarah loved clothes shopping with Grace, especially since discovering that Grace was a thrift-store genius. Grace managed to stretch her clothes budget in ways that Sarah had never dreamed of.

“It started out as just trying to work within the funds Edward gave me for clothing,” Grace explained. “He wasn’t being cheap, it’s just that he was used to shopping for a teenaged boy—two pairs of jeans and a half dozen t-shirts was school clothes for a year. So I discovered vintage clothing and thrift stores. But by now, I feel annoyed if I have to pay full price for anything other than underwear.”

Not only did she find amazing treasures buried in obscure corners of the shops, she was also adept at what Sarah came to think of as the Grace Technique for bargaining. Grace just smiled, as chipper and open and friendly as she ever was, and chatted amiably with the clerk or shop owner while checking out. By the time they were done, somehow an additional ten, fifteen, or even twenty percent had been taken off of their bill.

As they entered one of Grace’s favorite shops, she said, “Okay. I think it’s time for Project Vitamin D.”

“Project what?”

“It’s mid-summer and Tedd is still almost as pale as he was in December. We need to lure him out into the sun.”

“Right. And how do you propose we do that?”

“Easy peasy, with the right bait.”

“Bait?”

“Bait,” Grace confirmed. “Us.” She pulled a dark blue maillot off the rack and held it up to her body for consideration, before shaking her head and putting it back.

“Ah… bathing suits and I have never been the best of friends,” Sarah began to protest, but Grace cut her off.

“Sweetie, with your figure, if you’re not happy with how you look in a bathing suit, it’s the suit’s fault, not yours.” Sarah grimaced. “Trust me, when we find the right one, you’ll be amazed.”

Sarah had never spent more than fifteen or twenty minutes, tops, shopping for a bathing suit. Her shopping technique was to get in, get something that wasn’t too horrible, and get out again.

She and Grace spent over three hours, hopping from store to store, before Grace was satisfied they’d found the right ones. The final half hour was spent in Grace convincing Sarah to buy a second suit, a bikini.

“I’ve never worn a bikini in my life!” she protested, staring at herself in the changing room mirror, faintly mortified.

“No time like the present to start.”

“But…” Sarah blushed. “I’m so… _exposed._ It’s like walking around in my underwear!”

“Well, yes. That’s the idea. Bait, remember?”

Sarah remembered Grace in her chosen suit, and said, “Trust me, if you’re in that suit, you won’t _need_ any additional bait from me.”

“But think of how much happier he’ll be if you’re in something similar. I know _I’ll_ be happier.”

Eventually, Grace wore Sarah down, and she tried on several more suits. When she came to a simple, unadorned pink one, Sarah was surprised at Grace’s reaction as she stepped back from helping her tie the top in back. Grace’s eyes went wide, and she licked her lips. “That’s it. We’re done.”

“What?”

“Look in the mirror, love. If you don’t buy that for yourself, I’m buying it for you.”

Sarah turned around reluctantly, and looked. She was pleasantly surprised. Even with the ridiculous look of her panties peeking out around the edges of the bikini bottoms, she had to concede, it _was_ a sexy look. She adjusted her right boob in its cup a little better, and nodded. It was nowhere near as tiny and revealing as Grace’s chosen suit, but it was flattering. Okay, hot.

Grace chuckled throatily. “Teddy will never know what hit him. Let’s make sure we’ve got plenty of suntan lotion, or he’ll burn to a crisp.”

Their drive home was taken up with negotiations for the location of Project Vitamin D. Grace wanted a day trip to the beach. Sarah insisted that, for her first time out in a bikini, she didn’t want to be _quite_ that public. Not yet. Besides which, getting Tedd away from his lab for a full day road trip would be problematic at best. They finally settled on a first “outing” in the Verres’ back yard, which had the added advantage of allowing them to set the stage for their trap in advance.

As they spread towels on the grass, Sarah giggled.

“Tedd mentioned something web designers sometimes do to trap spammers the other day. What was it? It was something sweet. Sugar something?”

Grace thought a moment. “Honeypots?”

“Yeah, that’s it. We’re setting up a Tedd honeypot here.”

Grace grinned. “You look sweet as honey to me.”

“You too,” Sarah replied. Though actually, Grace looked more hot than sweet. Grace’s bikini was four little triangles, patterned in shimmering blue and green scales, connected by string and gold rings. Sarah couldn’t imagine ever wearing something like that out in public, but on Grace it just looked natural. And sexy. Very, _very_ sexy.

Grace, with her usual lack of body modesty, was cheerfully traipsing in and out of the house in her bikini as they brought out drinks, lotions, and books. Sarah, feeling a little more shy, had a gauzy beach cover-up on over her suit.

Edward came out of his study to the kitchen, and stopped cold when he saw the two of them. Sarah, despite her cover-up, blushed, and turned away to grab a bag of chips out of a cupboard.

“Ah. Going to do some sunbathing, I take it?” Edward asked drily.

“We’re planning on luring Tedd out to get some sun,” confided Grace cheerily. “He could use some.”

“Well. I don’t think you’ll have any problems luring him.” He opened the fridge and pulled out an apple, then said, “I just remembered, I have some papers I need to get from the office. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“Okay! See you later,” said Grace.

“Bye,” Sarah squeaked, struggling to keep in her laughter.

Sarah managed to hold hold it together until Edward had left, then she collapsed into a kitchen chair, red from head to navel and giggling hysterically.

“Sarah? What’s wrong?” Grace asked.

Sarah looked up at Grace, a heavenly vision in her bikini, looking puzzled. She laughed some more, embarrassment making it impossible for her to speak for a minute.

“Do you… do you know _why_ Edward just left?” she finally managed to gasp out.

Grace regarded Sarah with some concern. “You heard him. He left some papers at the office.”

Sarah shook her head. “Oh, my sweet squirrel. No, that’s what he _said_. That’s _not_ why he left.”

“Not?”

“He’s… how can I put this? He doesn’t think there’s any chance Tedd can look at you in that bikini and not want to jump your bones. He’s giving you some alone time.”

“Oh.” Grace frowned. “But, I really _do_ want Tedd to spend some time outside in the sun. It’s good for his serotonin levels.”

“Yeah, but Edward doesn’t know that.”

“And besides, you’re here. How would we… do you think he knows about our triad?”

Sarah sobered up a bit at that question. “I… don’t know. Maybe? If so, he’s being awfully accommodating. Or maybe he just assumes I’ll clear out if things get hot and heavy between you two.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“As if I would.” They grinned at each other, and finished setting up their honeypot.

Sarah peeled off her cover-up, and lay face-down on one of the beach towels they’d set up in the back yard. She yipped a little in surprise when she felt Grace untie her bikini top. “Grace! What about the neighbors!” Sarah tried to press herself even flatter to the ground.

“Don’t turn over,” said Grace complacently. She then lay down next to Sarah and reached behind herself to undo her ties too. Then she propped herself up on her elbows a bit and grabbed her phone. She called Tedd, and put the phone on speaker.

“Hey, Grace, wassup? I thought you were at home.”

“I am, sweetie, but we need your help with something.”

“Uh. Can Sarah help you? I’m right in the middle—”

“Sarah needs your help too. Can you come to the back yard for a minute?”

“The back yard?” He sounded puzzled.

“Please?” said Sarah. “It shouldn’t take you long.”

“Uh. Sure. Just a sec.” He hung up.

Sarah and Grace lay there, facing each other, each of them sporting wicked grins. “Turn your head towards the house,” Sarah urged Grace. “You’re not going to want to miss his expression when he comes out.”

They didn’t have to wait long. Tedd came out the back door, saying “What did you neee…” his voice trailed off, and he stood frozen in the doorway, half in, half out of the house. His expression was everything Sarah had hoped, pure deer trapped in headlights. He opened and closed his mouth several times, but nothing came out.

“We need your help putting on suntan lotion,” said Grace innocently.

“If you don’t mind,” added Sarah.

“I… ah…” Tedd stepped out of the house, and walked towards them slowly, as if in a trance. Sarah giggled a little.

“Is something wrong?” asked Sarah.

“Uh… no, I… um…”

“Oh, dear. I think we broke his brain,” said Grace sadly.

“Well, maybe we can find some uses for his body,” murmured Sarah, noticing rising evidence of Tedd’s interest in the scene before him.

Tedd arrived at their towels, and stared down at them for a moment, before sitting down in a cross-legged position at their heads. “You are wicked, wicked women,” he said. Sarah and Grace laughed.

“I really _do_ need someone to put some lotion on me,” Sarah said. “I won’t last long out here.”

“Take off your shirt and stay a while,” Grace urged him. “We’d hate to have gone to all this work for nothing.”

Tedd tore his eyes away from Sarah and Grace, and appeared to notice the rest of the setting for the first time. The third towel, already laid out for him, the cooler of drinks, the snacks, and the stack of unread books taken from his bedside stand to give him something to read.

“Well. I’d hate to seem unappreciative.” He peeled off his t-shirt, then added, “But I’m going to need someone to lotion me up, too.”

“No problem,” said Grace, as she sat up and grabbed the tube of lotion.

_“Grace!”_ chorused Tedd and Sarah.

“What?” She glanced down at her bare breasts. “Oh. Right,” she sighed. She lay back down, and Tedd started laughing quietly. “What’s so funny?”

“I think you just made Mr. Gillan’s day,” he murmured. “Week. Month.”

“Well, he’s a nice old man,” said Grace. “If it makes him happy…”

Tedd appeared to be trying to watch something out of the corner of his eye without turning his head. “I think so. He looks a little stunned, but not pissed off. Yeah, there’s a grin.”

“Why would my breasts piss anyone off?”

Tedd snorted. “In a just and rational world, your breasts would be a cause for celebration, my dear. Alas, that’s not our world. In any event, I’m glad he’s not a blue-nose who gets offended by some accidental nudity.”

“Oh, good,” Sarah said. “But, in the meantime, could _I_ get some lotion? Pale Nordic blonde over here, remember?”

“Sure.” Tedd proceeded to spread lotion all over her back and legs, taking his time with the process. She felt Grace’s hands join Tedd’s, and she cracked one eye open to confirm that this time Grace had re-tied her top before sitting up. Sarah whimpered a little in sensual pleasure at the impromptu massage, which ended all too soon for her tastes.

“Your turn, Teddy,” Grace said. Sarah briefly considered tying her top back on so she could join Grace in rubbing lotion all over Tedd, but her lassitude from the heat and the brief massage kept her in place. She smiled as she listened to Tedd make whimpering noises quite similar to the ones she’d just been making. Soon thereafter, Grace lay back down beside her, and Sarah dozed happily in the warmth of the sun.

She was pulled out of her doze some undefined time later by the feeling of fingers tying her bikini top back on. “Hey, Sare, I think you need to turn over,” Grace was saying. “This side is looking pretty done.”

Sarah yawned, and pushed herself up to a sitting position. “Umf. Sounds good. Can I get a lemon fizzy water?”

“Sure,” said Tedd, rummaging through the cooler stocked with enough drinks for a week. “Here you go— _Woah_.”

She blinked a little sleepily at him. “Woah? Woah what?” He was staring at her, his hand with the can in it outstretched towards her. His mouth was slowly curling up into a smile.

Grace chuckled happily. “See, love, I _told_ you it was a good suit,” and Sarah realized that it was the first time Tedd had seen her sitting up in her new bikini.

“Oh.” She bit her lip, and smiled. “You like?”

“You are _so_ beautiful,” he said admiringly. He shook his head wonderingly. “How did I end up with the two most beautiful women in the world?”

“The same way we ended up with the sexiest man in the world,” said Grace, while Sarah was trying to dredge up an appropriate response from her still foggy brain.

“Not to mention smartest,” Sarah added. She popped open the can and took a long swallow. “Oh, that’s good.”

She finished off that can and half of another, then lotioned up the front of her body. She joined the others in plowing through some of the snacks, chatting about nothing in particular, just enjoying the day. She glanced over at Tedd’s towel, noticing he had an open book laying face-down beside him. She reached over and picked it up, keeping a finger in his place in the book.

“ _The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat?_ I’ve heard of that. What’s it about?” she asked, as she began to skim the back cover blurb.

“It’s a bunch of case studies of people with various neurological disorders,” Tedd said. At Sarah’s dubious look, he added, “It’s better than that makes it sound. Fascinating, really. A large part of the way we discover how the brain works is by studying cases where it _stops_ working in some specific way or another.”

“Although nowadays we can also study a healthy brain in an MRI, to see how parts of it function,” Grace put in.

“Oh, like you wanted to do to Elliot in his Heidi form,” Sarah said.

“Yeah.” Tedd sighed. “I’d really love to do that at some point. Maybe when we get to MIT.”

Sarah tried to ignore the little quiver in her stomach she felt whenever Tedd or Grace referred to MIT; _they_ had been admitted, not she. _It’s a year from now_ , she reminded herself. _Lot of things can happen between now and then, including you getting into a school near them._

Aloud, she said, “If you want to scan Elliot in an MRI, why don’t you just build one?”

Tedd stared at her, mouth open, looking like he was trying to find a way to put his thoughts into words that wouldn’t get him slapped.

“Sweetie… I know science isn’t your forte…” he began.

Sarah rolled her eyes. “I _know_ you can’t build an _actual_ MRI. They’re huge, and require a ton of power. But what about the magical equivalent.”

“I don’t think—”

“Don’t you already have something like that in the TF gun?”

“Uh.” Tedd stared at her, looking puzzled.

“When you scan someone to make a clone copy, doesn’t that require some kind of full-body scan, kinda like an MRI?”

“More like a combination MRI, CT scan, PET scan, DNA scanner, and electron microscope,” said Grace thoughtfully. “Plus a few others.”

“Okay, so it’s even more powerful than an MRI. Why can’t you use that?”

Tedd just stared at her, looking pole-axed and blinking. Sarah almost started giggling; it looked like the hamster wheel in his brain was stuck spinning around and around. She looked at Grace, who was also looking amused at Tedd’s reaction.

She looked back to Tedd just as he grabbed her head, and pulled her face to his for a hard kiss. “Eeph!” she squeaked into his mouth, then just as she started to relax into the kiss and enjoy it, he pulled away.

“Sarah-my-love, I’m going to let _you_ do all my hard thinking from now on. How on Earth did I ever miss that? It’s so obvious!”

Sarah grinned. “Because it’s so obvious?” Tedd laughed, and ran a hand through his hair. His gaze focused on something invisible in the distance, as he began to think.

“It’s a static scan, a holographic snapshot, not dynamic, but if I use that as a starting point, I bet I can find a way to stream the data live and interpret it. The data density has got to be huge, gonna have to find a way to deal with it all, split it out into component areas…” He stood up and wandered back towards the house.

“And he’s off,” Grace said, fondly, watching him head inside. She and Sarah exchanged amused looks, then they got up and followed Tedd into his basement lab.

He was already at his computer, still shirtless, hunched over his keyboard and his fingers flying as he typed.

Sarah slipped an arm around Grace’s waist as they stood there watching their love at work. The intensity of his thought process was almost palpable as he focused on the problem. Here was Tedd at his most beautiful, Sarah thought, when his mind was fully engaged and racing.

“He’s amazing,” Grace murmured quietly, echoing Sarah’s thoughts. Sarah glanced at her, and Grace looked back at her and smiled. “But you’re no less amazing. His muse.”

Sarah blushed. “I just came up with an idea,” she protested. “ _He’s_ the one who will make it work.”

“An idea which never occurred to him, or me, even though we work with this almost daily. We’re so used to just taking it for granted, using it as intended. We never thought to extend it like that.”

Sarah would have sworn Tedd was totally oblivious to the world around him, but he broke off in his typing, and spun around in his chair. “Grace is right, Sarah. You’re amazing. I can plug away at this stuff until the cows come home, but without that initial idea, that creative spark, to point me in the right direction, I’m just a mechanic. Thank you.” His gaze was locked on her with all the intensity with which he was tackling this problem. Sarah felt her face flush and her nipples harden under the heat of that gaze, even though she knew his was an intellectual intensity, not sexual.

_But at this level of intensity, the boundary lines get kind of blurry,_ she mused. She recalled the way she felt when work on a piece of art was going particularly well; the experience was almost sensual, sexual. _Arousing_ in the broadest sense of the word, activating all of her senses.

But before she could act on the heat she was feeling, Tedd spun back around in his chair, and resumed work. Sarah gave a shaky little laugh, and exchanged a commiserating glance with Grace.

“The problem will own him for a while,” Grace said, still standing with her arm around Sarah’s waist.

“Yeah. But, God, he’s hot.”

“Oh, yeah.” Grace gently bumped her hip into Sarah’s. “As are you. Muse.”

Sarah looked sideways at Grace, and saw she wasn’t the only one affected by Tedd’s intensity. “Think he’ll notice if we slip away to your room for a while?” she murmured.

Grace started walking them towards the stairs. “Nope. But if he does…”

“He’ll know where to find us,” Sarah finished, with a smile. Grace was already untying her bikini top even as they headed up the stairs.

 

 

 

 


	6. Juliette

Sarah sat cross-legged in her back yard, working on a sketch of Juliette.

Juliette was the name she’d given, as a young child, to a slightly kitschy garden statue of a fairy. Her father had bought it for her over a decade ago, during an unendurably long—for a six-year-old—spring trip to the gardening store. Sarah had quickly become bored with looking at the so-called flowers (which didn’t have flowers on them yet, so why were they _called_ flowers?). After what seemed like hours and hours, she had wandered away from Carol and her parents, and stumbled upon the garden statuary. She had been going through a fairy princess stage at the time, and she’d instantly made friends with the two foot high fairy statue she’d found there.

When her parents finally found her there, her father had been so endeared to see her chatting amiably with the inanimate figurine that he’d added it to their shopping cart, much to Sarah’s delight and her mother’s mild annoyance. Although her father was kind, he was also a fairly stolid man, not given to random acts of frivolous generosity, so this event stood out in her memories, and warmed her heart. The statue frequently reminded her of her father, chuckling over Juliette and herself as he pushed them in the cart to the check-out counter.

She’d done numerous sketches of Juliette over the years, starting almost the day she’d been placed in their back yard garden. During Juliette’s first few years in the garden, Sarah had insisted that she be brought inside during the winter so she wouldn’t get cold. Juliette had spent the winter months in the corner of the family room, where she’d endured many a ‘tea party’ with Sarah and her friends.

Now, years later, she’d acquired a weathered patina from her seasons in the garden, and actually looked like she belonged there. Sarah wasn’t sure if Juliette had become less tacky looking with the patina of age, or if she’d just grown so accustomed to Juliette being there that she couldn’t imagine this corner of the yard without her.

“Hey, sweetie. What’re you doing up before noon?” Sarah looked up as her father crossed the lawn, a pair of thick leather gloves in one hand, pruning shears in the other.

“Funny, Dad. I’m just doing another sketch of Juliette.” She tilted the sketchpad to show him her work. Her father squatted down beside her, dropped his gloves and shears beside him, and took the sketchpad in hand.

“Not bad. You just keep getting better and better,” he observed. “Though I’m still partial to the first one you did for me.” Sarah snorted. One of the first drawings she’d done of Juliette, in vivid crayon colors, had adorned her father’s study wall for years, along with assorted other childish ‘masterpieces.’

He hefted the sketchpad, and asked, “Can I see what else you’ve done recently?” That was one of the many things Sarah loved about her dad; he always _asked_ to see her work, as opposed to her mother, who felt free to just flip through her sketchpads whenever she came across one. Which, in recent months, had lead Sarah to be a good deal more cautious about where she stored them, as her sketchbooks now had, among other things, numerous nude sketches of both Grace and Tedd. Sometimes of the two of them together.

With that in mind, she shook her head, and said, “Not right now, if you don’t mind. Maybe later?” After she’d torn out a few select pages.

Her father handed the sketchbook back to her and said, “Sure. I’d like that.” He shifted from a squat to sitting cross-legged on the ground beside her. “I’m glad to bump into you out here, actually. I had something I wanted to talk to you about, one-on-one.”

Sarah felt a small surge of worry. “Oh? What about?”

Her father plucked at a few blades of grass, not looking at her. “There are some things I think are better discussed between us, before bringing your mother into the conversation.”

Sarah swallowed, and, eyes wide, gave a noncommittal “Oh?”

“I was talking with Jack a few weeks ago, after bowling.” Jack Dunkel was Elliot and Ellen’s father. “While we were talking about our kids, as parents sometimes do, he mentioned that he didn’t see much of you anymore since you broke up with Elliot.”

Sarah shrugged, not sure where this conversation was heading. “Well, I sorta feel like a third wheel, hanging out with him and Ashley. I mean, she’s nice enough and all, but…” Sarah trailed off, not sure she wanted to try and explain her mostly positive, but still slightly mixed, feelings about her ‘replacement.’

“Yeah, I can certainly understand that. But it was something else he said that got me to thinking.”

“Oh?” Sarah repeated.

“He said, that whenever he _did_ see you, it was always in the company of Tedd and Grace.” Sarah felt her stomach begin to knot up, and her face began to redden. “Which got me to thinking, and I realized just how much time you’re spending with them lately.” He finally looked up from the grass, to give her a little quirk of a smile. “This isn’t something that would ever occur to your mother. She’s a little, ah, traditional. But…” He paused, seeming unable to put his thoughts into words, then he finally settled on, “Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”

Sarah’s face was flaming red; she wished her months with Tedd and Grace could have worn out that reflex of hers, but it still remained. “Daddy…” She bit her lip. “I… don’t know what to say.”

Her father put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her against him in a hug. “You know I only want you to be happy and safe,” he said quietly. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted for my girls.”

The mention of ‘his girls’ reminded Sarah of her sister Carol, and her father’s reaction, or lack thereof, to her sister dating women. Her thoughts skittered a little sideways, and she played for time a bit by asking something she’d wondered about for years.

“Dad… I always wondered.” She paused, licked her lips, and, buoyed by months of practicing ‘communicate, communicate, communicate’ with Tedd and Grace, she found the will to push on. “In college. Did _you…_ have a, uh, boyfriend?”

Her father started, then gave a short laugh. “ _Not_ where I was expecting this conversation to go… though I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.” He blew out a breath, then said, “If you’re wondering if there’s a genetic component to Carol and you being bi… yes. His name was Lee.”

“ _Lee?_ Lee was a guy? I’d heard you and Mom mention her—er, him—a couple of times when talking about past relationships, but I didn’t know she— _he_ —was a guy.”

“Yes, well, as you know, it’s something your mother has some issues with. The few times—the _very_ few times—he’s come up in conversation in the last thirty years, we sort of glossed over the pronouns.”

Sarah had long suspected her father was bi, but hearing it confirmed shook her world a little. So much so that it took her a few more moments to process his in-passing comment. “Uh, wait, Carol _and_ me being bi?”

“Well, I assume that that’s what’s going on with you and Grace? The two of you seem awfully close whenever I see you together.”

Sarah stared at her father for a moment, not sure how to respond. Whenever Tedd and Grace came over to, say, watch TV, she sat with Grace between her and Tedd, figuring that her snuggling up against Grace was less incriminating than cuddling up to Tedd. That strategy seemed to have backfired, or rather ricocheted, in an odd way.

“It’s not something your mother would notice. She has a bit of a willful blind spot where same-sex relationships are concerned,” her father went on. “But… you _are_ dating her, aren’t you?”

“Uh…” Sarah blinked at her father. She felt like her mind was somehow racing a thousand miles a minute, and yet going nowhere. He’d drawn _a_ correct conclusion, just not the _whole_ correct conclusion.

Suddenly she recalled her conversation with her cousin Ruthie last spring. Her mouth twisted in a little smile, and she said, “Well, yes and no.”

“No?”

“Well… I’m not _only_ dating her.”

“Ah…” Her father blushed a little, and dropped his arm from around her shoulder. “I _really_ don’t need to know the more intimate details of your relationship, sweetie. But I’m, uh, glad for you, that you’ve found someone so nice.”

“What?” It took Sarah a moment to figure out where the conversation had taken a wrong turn, further increasing her own blush. “No, no, no, I didn’t mean it like _that_ —I meant, it’s not _only her_ that I’m dating. I’m… uh… I’m also dating… Tedd.”

Her father stared at her for a moment, the look of confusion on his face so pure that Sarah was hard put not to burst into nervous giggles.

“Tedd,” he repeated blankly. He looked vaguely stunned.

“Yes?” She stared at his face, anxiously waiting for some response she could get a handle on.

“ _And_ Grace?”

“Yes.”

“So… he’s not just your beard?”

Sarah _had_ to giggle at that. “No. Not at all.”

“So… you’re not just bi… but you’re, what, in a ménage à trois?”

She took a deep breath. “Well, we like to call it a triad. But, yeah.”

“Triad. Catchy.” He continued to stare at her, his face a picture of confusion.

“Dad? Give me something to work with, here. What are you thinking?”

He snorted and shook his head. “I’m feeling a bit foolish. I thought I had the situation all figured out. You and Grace, dating, using Tedd as protective coloration.”

“Well, it’s not as if poly relationships are all that common. It would hardly be most people’s first guess.”

“Polly?”

“Short for polyamorous. The word for a relationship with more than one lover.” Then she winced. She wished she’d used the more generic term "partner" instead of "lover." Unfortunately, her father picked up on the term.

“Ah. And, uh, are they? Your, um, lovers?”

Sarah buried her face in her hands, and nodded. There was a moment of silence as he took this in.

“Do they make you happy?”

That was _not_ the first question Sarah had anticipated, or feared, in response to this revelation. She lifted her face from her hands, daring to look at her father again. He was probably almost as red-faced as she was. _Maybe that’s where I get this tendency to blush from_ , she thought, somewhat irrelevantly. But behind his blush was a look of loving concern. Not the anger, disappointment, or judgement that she’d feared. She smiled a little.

“Yeah. They really do.”

“And… are you being, um, safe?”

_“Dad!”_

“What? I said I wanted you happy and safe. I don’t want you… knocked up… before you even get to college.”

Sarah squeezed her eyes shut, so she wouldn’t have to look at her father while discussing her sex life. She took a deep breath, then blurted out, “We’re using _two_ different methods of contraception, that combined are pretty much one-hundred percent effective.” She hoped he wouldn’t want any more details than that. Let him assume it was a traditional pairing of contraceptives, and not two different forms of alien technological magic.

“Ah. Good. Good. I'm glad.”

After a few moments of silence, Sarah looked up to see him staring at Juliette, a slightly sad little smile on his face.

“Dad? Are you… okay with this?”

He shook himself, and looked back to Sarah, his smile growing warmer. “Ah, sweetie. It’s just… my little girl is growing up.” He put an arm around her and hugged her. “You’re turning into a wonderful young woman, you know? They’re lucky to have you. I hope they know that.”

Sarah felt a lump in her throat, and she buried her head against her father’s shoulder. “I love you, Dad.”

He gave her forehead a gentle kiss. “Love you too, my Sare-bear.”

They sat like that for a minute, enjoying the garden and each other’s presence, then her father sighed and looked to the heavens.

“So… I guess the next question is, do you want to tell your mom?”

The knot in Sarah’s stomach that had slowly dissipated while talking with her father returned. “God. Yes—no—I don’t know.”

“If you want to stay in the closet, Tedd and Grace are themselves a perfect cover story, since they’re a known couple. I doubt your mother would ever make the leap to a, ah, polyamorous relationship.”

“Yeah. I know. But… I don’t like hiding.” She looked up at her father. “I love them. I really do. I _hate_ the thought of hiding that love, just for the sake of her… prejudices.”

“Telling her won’t be easy.”

Sarah laughed bitterly. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“So, the question is, is the difficulty of that conversation a price worth paying in order to not have to hide your relationship?”

Sarah was silent for a few moments, considering. “You don’t think… she wouldn’t, like, disown me, would she?”

Her father looked shocked. “Of course not. She loves you, Sarah.”

“Yeah, well, lots of gay or bi kids’ parents say they love them, until they come out.”

“She hasn’t cut Carol out of her life. Your mother still loves her. What makes you think she would do that to you?”

“Because I’m giving her the added complication of polyamory to swallow?”

Her father considered that for a few moments, then shook his head. “I don’t think that will make it worse. Well, not _too_ much worse.” He sighed. “If you were going to go off to college this fall, I _would_ suggest waiting until then to tell her. But since you’re taking deferred entry for a year, that might seem like too long a time to wait.”

“Yeah. I really don’t want to have to hide this for the next year. Even if we could.”

Her father cocked his head and regarded her. “We’re talking about this as if telling her is a foregone conclusion. That _is_ what you want to do, I take it?”

“Yeah. I guess _not_ telling her was never really in my plans. It’s always been more a matter of _when_ I told her.”

“Ah.” They fell silent for a little while. Sarah rolled her pencil between her palms nervously for a few moments, then tucked it into the spiral binding of her sketchbook.

“So… how on Earth are you—we—going to break this one to your mother?”

Sarah groaned. “I don’t know. But…” she smiled at her father. “I’m glad you’re on my side. Even though I was pretty sure you would be, I was a little worried.”

“Worried about me?”

“Some. Though not as much as Mom, of course. You were always more accepting of Carol’s girlfriends. I kinda figured you’d be the easier half of the equation.”

“Well, it’s been a little bit of a shock, and not _quite_ what I was expecting. I’d been pretty sure for a few weeks now that you and Grace were dating.”

“A few weeks? And you’re only mentioning it now?”

“I didn’t want to rush you. I know how difficult these things can be to discuss with your parents.”

That sparked a question that had never occurred to Sarah before. “Did you ever tell Gramma and Grampa about Lee?”

“Just Ma. She’s a bit more… _flexible_ … in her world view than my father ever was.” He frowned, looking back at Juliette. “Even so, it wasn’t an easy conversation. The world has changed a lot in the past few decades.” He glanced sideways at her. “Though I’m not sure if the world is ready for triads just yet.”

Sarah sighed. “Yeah. I know. As if being bi isn’t confusing or difficult enough. At least most people have heard of it. Polyamory is still… kinda out there, to most folks.”

“Like your mother.”

“Yeah. Like her.”

“Do you want me to talk with her about it first?”

Sarah hesitated, torn. “Uh… yes, but no? I mean, yeah, I’d _really_ rather not have to have that conversation with her at all. But… it feels wrong to leave it to you. It’s _my_ life. My loves. I don’t want to act like I’m embarrassed or ashamed of them.” She plucked at some grass in front of her as she thought. “If I’m… _adult_ enough to be in a meaningful relationship with them, I should be adult enough to acknowledge them too.” She paused, and looked at him with a wry grin. “Not that I really _really_ wouldn’t rather leave it up to you.”

Her father pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head. “That sounds like a more mature response than _I_ could have managed at your age. And I can hardly blame you for wanting to hand the conversation off to someone else.”

“Yeah.” They sat in silence for a few moments, contemplating the conversation to come. “Do you know… why is Mom so, so… homophobic? Or bi-phobic.” Then she shook her head and corrected herself. “But she’s _not_ homophobic; she has no problems with Ellen and Nanase. Or Pastor Ingram. Or the Beckers. It’s just… Carol. And now me. Probably.”

“Well, I think that says it all. The fact that it's her girls.”

“Well, yeah, obviously. But… if it's okay for Ellen and Nanase, why not _us_?”

Her father sighed and looked pensive. “I never met your mom’s parents, obviously. But, from what I've heard of them… they were a real piece of work. I know your mom’s, ah, quirks drive you nuts sometimes, but, really, sometimes it seems to me it's something of a miracle that she's as sane as she is.”

Then he paused, and shook his head, frowning slightly. “No, _not_ a miracle. Calling it a ‘miracle’ doesn't give her proper credit for all the hard work she's done. All the therapy, and soul-searching, questioning and self-evaluation.” He sat up straighter for a moment and turned to look around the yard. He turned back to Sarah. “I would never in a million years say this to her, but… in some ways, I think it was a blessing that her parents died in that crash when she was fourteen.” He stared at Sarah intently. “You need to understand—she’s worked _hard_ to get to where she is. She has recovered from a lot of childhood… stuff. I won’t claim she’s perfect, and I know she rubs you the wrong way sometimes, but she really _does_ love you. Even if the way she shows it is sometimes…” he hesitated.

“Annoying?”

He smiled slightly. “Sure. Let's go with that.”

“All right.” Sarah sighed, and tried to integrate this new information into her view of her mother. She'd known some of what her father had said, although the concept that her unknown grandparents’ deaths might have been for the best was a new, and somewhat disturbing, thought.

“So… what do you think would be the best way to bring this up, with her?”

Her father stared at Juliette for a few silent moments, rubbing the back of his head. “Good question.”

“Presumably _not_ during Friday dinner at the end of a long hard week.”

Her father snorted. “Indeed not.” That being how Carol had come out about _her_ first girlfriend. “For the sake of my digestion, if nothing else. But, take the opposite of that as a cue—some time when she's fed, well rested, and not stressed.”

“So… never?” said Sarah wistfully.

He chuckled. “She's not _that_ bad. Say, some Saturday, when she's slept in a bit, and after lunch.”

Sarah's stomach clenched. “Like… after lunch today?” She had sort of been hoping to put it off a little longer.

“If you want. It’s your call. But I’ll be there with you. I’ll try to do a better job of supporting you than I did for Carol.” He grimaced, and looked a little sad.

“Thank you, Dad.” She took in her father’s shame-faced look, and added, “You know, Carol has told me that your support was a large part of what helped her get through all that mess with Mom, when she came out.”

Her father brightened a little. “Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

“Huh. Well, I’m glad she feels that way. Though I still think I could have done better by her.”

“We all make mistakes sometimes. Even parents.”

He chuckled. “Ah, my wise daughter.” He looked thoughtful for a moment, then asked, “Have you discussed this relationship with Carol?”

“No, not yet.”

“Really? I would have thought she’d be the first person you’d talk to about it.”

“No, that was Susan.”

“Of course. Your _other_ sister.”

Sarah laughed. “Yeah.”

“So…” He gave her a measured look. “Should we tackle her after lunch, today? Or do we wait for another day?”

Sarah loved her father for that "we."

“Today, I guess, but…” she grimaced, thinking back to her mother’s reaction to Serena, Carol’s first girlfriend. “I _like_ Tedd and Grace being able to come over to visit. What if she says she doesn't want them in our house anymore?”

“Ah. Hmm. _That_ one you can leave to me. I've always felt guilty about letting your mother do that to Serena. I won't let it happen again. It's _your_ home, too.”

Sarah leaned against her father and gave him a big hug. “Thanks, Dad. I love you.”

“Love you too, daughter mine.”

 

* * *

 

Later that afternoon, Sarah rang the doorbell at the Verres house. After a few moments, Grace answered the door.

“Hey, sweetie, we weren't expecting you until after dinner.”

Sarah blinked at her, a little vaguely. “Dinner? Oh, right. The movie.”

Grace frowned at Sarah's distracted air. “Sarah? Are you okay?” She put a hand on Sarah's arm, pulling her into the house. Sarah let herself be guided.

“I'm okay. Just… drained.” She blew out a long breath. “I just came out about our relationship to my mom.”

“Oh, wow. That’s—wait, what about your dad?”

Sarah snorted. “ _He_ figured it out weeks ago. Well, sorta. He thought you and I were dating, and were using Tedd as our beard.”

Grace started to giggle, then clapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry.”

Sarah shook her head and gave a tired smile. “Don't be. That was my first reaction, too.” She peered around the living room. “Is Tedd home? He should probably be in on this conversation too.”

“He’s making a supply run to American Surplus.”

“Oh, yeah, right.” She frowned slightly. “What about Edward?”

“Uh…”

“I'm in here,” came Edward’s voice from the kitchen. He stepped out into the living room, a soda can in hand. Sarah blanched when she saw him.

“Sorry,” he said. “I wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but I couldn't help overhearing.”

Sarah closed her eyes and massaged her forehead with her fingertips. “Oh, _bother._ ” She decided to toss the conversational ball back into Edward’s court. Sighing, she opened her eyes, and turned to him. She forced a smile. “So. Any questions?”

Grace looked surprised at Sarah's approach, but didn't say anything.

“How's your mom dealing with all this?” asked Edward.

Sarah stared at him, taken aback, then she started to laugh quietly. “I guess we weren't hiding anything from _you,_ were we?” Grace was also looking at Edward with a startled look on her face.

“If you're referring to your ménage à trois, I confess I only noticed it a couple of weeks ago. Though I gather it's been going on for a good bit longer than that.”

“Uh. Yeah. A bit.”

“Since spring break, really,” said Grace.

Edward shook his head, smiled faintly, then took a sip of his soda. “I don't know if you're just that good at hiding things, or if I'm just that oblivious to non–traditional relationships. Grace and Tedd were no surprise—I expected _that_ relationship pretty much from the day she moved in. But I have to admit, _this_ caught me by surprise.”

Sarah cocked her head, considering the recent weeks. “What gave us away?” she asked curiously.

Edward shook his head again. “No one single thing. More just the accumulation of little details that were a little bit off. I began to wonder, and started paying closer attention to those odd details, when you were both involved in, ah, luring Tedd out into the sun. And, of course, there’s all the time you three have been spending together lately.”

“Ah.” Suddenly Sarah realized they were talking about this very matter-of-factly, without any drama. “So… how _do_ you feel about all this?” She gestured vaguely at Grace and herself, with Tedd included by implication.

Edward came around the couch and sat down in the armchair, gesturing for Sarah and Grace to also sit. He took another drink while they settled in. Sarah sat down at the end of the couch. Grace snuggled in close against Sarah, to Sarah’s mild surprise, but after a moment she mentally shrugged and put her arm around Grace’s shoulders, as Grace clearly wanted the contact. Edward gave them a brief glance, but didn’t comment on their physical affection.

“Well, as I said, I was surprised. I thought long and hard about it for a few days, but, in the end…” He hesitated, then tilted his head towards Grace. “I had long since accepted the notion of my son dating a not-totally-human woman. I knew Seyunolu Uryuoms are frequently polyamorous. So adding a fully human partner to the mix was not quite so large a leap.”

Sarah shook her head. “I can only imagine what my mother would say if she knew what Grace really is. It was hard enough as it was.”

Grace frowned a little. “Did the thought of me dating Tedd really bother you?” she asked Edward. “Because I’m not fully human?”

Edward looked a little abashed, but he didn’t evade the question. “I’m sorry, Grace. But, yes, at first it gave me cause for concern. Part of my job includes managing human/alien interactions, and I’ve seen that romantic liaisons between species frequently don’t thrive, long-term. I didn’t want Tedd to get hurt, if things didn’t work out. But as I’ve gotten to know you, it seems to me that your human half, whether through genetics or upbringing, is predominant. Which gives me more hope for your continued future together.”

“Oh,” said Grace quietly. She stared down at the carpet, and seemed to shrink in on herself a little. Sarah hugged her tighter, then kissed the top of her head.

“Grace.” Sarah looked up at Edward, and after a moment, Grace did likewise. He was grimacing. “I’m sorry. I’m not very good at this. I _was_ bothered. But—I’m not now. Maybe I phrased things poorly. I’ve not only ‘accepted’ the notion of you dating Tedd. I am _pleased_ that you are. You’re a good couple. You make him happy. For which I am glad. And… _I’m_ glad you are here, too.” Sarah was pleased that Grace seemed to take that to heart, sitting up a little straighter and smiling slightly.

Edward’s gaze shifted to Sarah. “And you make him happy too, apparently. Since spring break? That… explains a few things.” His mouth twitched in a sardonic smile. “So. How _is_ your mom dealing with all of this?”

Sarah sighed, and tilted her head from side to side. “So-so. I’d kinda hoped that she might be a little less uptight about it, having gotten used to, or at least resigned to, my sister being bi too. But… polyamory adds just one more level of weirdness for her to cope with. When you come right down to it, it seems like all she really wants for me or Carol is a traditional straight marriage with two-point-four kids and a white picket fence.” Grace giggled a little at that. “Yeah. Not likely.”

“Do you think it would be helpful for me to talk to her, or them?” asked Edward.

“I… thanks, but no. Not at this point, anyway. I think she just needs some time to get used to the idea.”

Grace shifted under Sarah’s arm, and turned her head towards the door. A few moments later, Sarah heard a car pull up in the driveway. She glanced at Grace, then Edward. For a moment she had the impish desire to re-stage things to shock Tedd as he walked in, but then she realized that the simple tableau they presented would be shock enough for him.

The other two seemed to be waiting on Tedd’s arrival too, as they all fell silent. They sat looking towards the kitchen door, where Tedd would enter the living room after coming in from the garage. Sarah felt a giggle rising up inside her, and glanced at Grace to see that her eyes were crinkled with suppressed laughter too. She snugged Grace a little more firmly under her arm just before Tedd walked in, a box full of surplus electronics in his arms.

“Hi, Teddy,” chirped Grace brightly.

“Hey, love,” said Sarah.

“Hello, son,” said Edward. “Did you have a productive shopping trip?”

Tedd froze in the doorway, taking in the scene in front of him: Sarah and Grace snuggled together on the couch, Sarah calling him "love" in front of his father. “Ah… yeah. Great,” he replied absently. “Found an old tube radio I…” he trailed off, still staring back and forth between his father and his lovers. Then he set the box down on the end table by the couch and sighed. “So I take it the squirrel is out of the bag?” he asked Sarah and Grace.

They both burst out laughing. “Yeah. You could say so,” Sarah replied.

Tedd looked at his father, who was sipping at his soda, his expression as bland as ever, though his eyes were crinkling at the corners. “And you’re… okay with this?”

“Are _you_?” his father replied. Tedd looked startled at the question.

“Uh… _yeah._ Or rather, _hell_ yeah. I’m—we’re— _more_ than okay.” Tedd smiled at his loves.

“Good. And, I know you’re bright enough to think of this, but as a parent, I feel obligated to ask—”

“Yes, we’re practicing safe sex,” Grace interrupted him. “Two complementary forms of contraception.” Sarah was glad Grace spared Tedd the embarrassment of discussing his sex life with his father. Not that Tedd—or she—was blushing much less anyway.

Edward nodded, then said, “Then, yes, I’m okay with this. I could wish you had told me before this, but I understand why you didn’t.”

“Oh.” Tedd looked at his father, then his girlfriends. “Well. _That_ was anti-climactic.” He sat down on the couch next to Grace, and slung an arm across her shoulders, his hand resting on Sarah’s shoulder. “I guess we could have told you months ago.”

“If you want drama, you should have been at _my_ house this afternoon,” said Sarah wearily, her good humor draining away as she remembered. “This conversation was _much_ more intense with my mother.”

Tedd leaned forward to peer around Grace at Sarah, frowning in concern. “Ouch. That happened today? Are you all right?”

“Been better.”

Grace and Tedd exchanged a look, then they both stood up. “Scoot over,” Grace said to Sarah.

“Wha?”

“Scootch!” said Tedd, gesturing towards the center of the couch.

Sarah slid away from the arm of the couch, and Grace and Tedd sat down flanking her, each putting an arm around her. Sarah looked over at Edward to see how he was taking this. He looked as phlegmatic as he ever did, but there was a hint of a smile peeking out from under his mustache. His quiet acceptance, combined with the warmth and comfort of having Tedd and Grace near, contrasted sharply with the tension and acrimony of her conversation with her mother. Without warning, surprising even herself, she burst into tears.

“Oh, sweetie,” murmured Grace, pulling Sarah to her and hugging her tight. Tedd placed a hand on her back, a comforting presence.

Sarah’s tears trickled off quickly, the short, intense burst of emotion over almost as quickly as it began. She remained slumped against Grace, feeling wrung out, taking solace in the touch of her loves.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that alone,” Tedd said, stroking her back to comfort her. “I had hoped we could be there to help.”

Sarah wiped her eyes, and shook her head. “I wasn’t alone. My dad was there, supporting me. And given the way she was acting, I don’t think your presence would have helped.”

“She was really that awful?” asked Grace.

Sarah hesitated, feeling a little torn. Speaking ill of her mother felt like betraying family secrets, but—it was a secret that involved Tedd and Grace. Who were, really, becoming her family. She pulled her head off of Grace’s shoulder and sat up between them.

“She wasn’t hysterical, or shouting or anything. I started out with telling her I was bi. She was… not happy with it, but, as I’d hoped, she was somewhat resigned to it, having already been through it with Carol. She gave my father some nasty looks, though. I’m sure she blames him for us being bi.”

“Why on Earth would she do that?” Tedd asked.

“Remember, Sarah said she thought her father might be bisexual too?” Grace reminded him.

“Oh. Yeah.” He shot a quick glance over at his father, silent witness to this tale, then asked, “So, uh, is he?”

“Oh, yeah.” Sarah frowned, staring at the floor. “But then I… I eff’ed up.”

“How so?”

“I, uh… I approached telling her about you guys in a joking sorta good news/bad news kind of way. ‘Hey, I may be bi, but the good news is, I’m dating a guy! The bad news is, I’m _also_ dating a girl!’”

Tedd winced.

“ _That_ went over like a lead balloon. I could see right away from the expression on Dad’s face that breaking it to her that way was a mistake, but by then it was too late.” Sarah pulled her feet up on the couch, and hugged her knees. Tedd and Grace kept their arms draped across her shoulders.

“Like I said, she wasn’t shouty, but… she got coldly furious. She thought I was making fun of her reaction to the situation. Belittling her concerns. Which I wasn’t! It’s just, up to that point, things were going so much more smoothly than I’d feared, so I relaxed a little. Tried to make a joke of the situation, to defuse some of the tension.”

“Didn’t work for you, either, huh?” asked Tedd.

“What?” Sarah stared blankly at him.

“I—” Tedd glanced again at his father. “Never mind. You were saying?”

Sarah shrugged. “Not much more to say, really. We spent the next half hour going in circles, arguing about it, until my father stepped in and suggested we take a break. And I came over here.” She shut her eyes and put her head down on her knees. She had told her parents where she was going as she walked out the door. She hadn’t quite heard the words of her mother’s response, but the tone of voice had been… unpleasant.

“I love her. She loves me. At least she _says_ she love me. So why is she so mad at me for loving someone else?” Sarah said sadly.

Tedd and Grace had no immediate response for that. They both just kept rubbing her back, and Sarah relaxed a little, dropping her arms from around her legs. She leaned against Grace and breathed deep, her scent relaxing her.

Edward cleared his throat quietly. “If you don’t mind…” he began.

Sarah looked up at him, “Yes?”

“I don’t know if you’d like a parent’s perspective.”

Sarah nodded. Edward might annoy her occasionally, but she respected his intellect.

“There are two different things at play here, I think. One is, your safety and happiness. Parents in general want their children to grow up to do well, to lead productive lives, to be happy, and fulfilled, and safe.”

“But I _am_ happy.”

“Yes, but your mother knows, as I’m sure you do too, that non-standard sexual behaviors, whether it’s bisexuality or polyamory, will make your life harder in the long run. You’ll encounter homophobia and prejudice in reaction to your chosen lifestyle. It may close certain doors to you, both personally and professionally. Which you already know, or you wouldn’t have hidden this relationship from us in the first place.”

“Yes, but… it’s _my_ choice to make. _I_ get to decide if those costs, the pains of living a, a, non-traditional lifestyle, are worth it. And I say they are.”

Edward nodded. “I’m not disagreeing. I’m just pointing out where she’s coming from. And it’s also part of growing up. For both the children _and_ for their parents. One of the hardest parts of parenting is knowing when to let your child make his or her own choices. When you’re six, you get to choose what clothes you wear to school. When you’re sixteen, you get to choose what classes to take, and which friends you hang out with. But letting go entirely, letting you make _all_ of your own choices, perhaps especially ones which may cause you pain and problems further down the line, is hard. Just because you’ve turned eighteen, and are soon to move out into the world on your own, doesn’t mean our protective instincts have automatically turned off.” His glance flickered for a moment to Tedd, and he sighed. “We have to let go. Let you make your own choices, your own mistakes. But it’s not always easy.”

“Loving Tedd and Grace isn’t a mistake—” began Sarah with a frown.

Edward raised a hand, cutting her off. “I’m not saying it is. I was speaking in general terms. We— _she_ —wants to protect you from making mistakes. From pain.”

Sarah nodded, her frown slowly being replaced by a thoughtful look.

“Secondly, there’s the religious side of the question. From what I understand, your mother was brought up in a rather rigid, fundamentalistic church. I know your family attends a fairly liberal church now, but she still has, at her core, those early moral lessons absorbed when she was a child.”

“Not _just_ a liberal church—our minister, Pastor Ingram, is gay. And that doesn’t seem to bother her.” Sarah frowned in thought a moment. “At least, I don’t think it does.”

“Yes, well, we often can accept for others what we cannot for our children,” Edward said.

“I don’t suppose pointing out that polygamy was fairly common in the Old Testament would be of any help?” asked Grace.

Sarah snorted. “No. Thank you, sweetie, but that will probably change her mind about as much as the biblical prohibition against eating shrimp.”

“What?” Tedd looked confused. “What does shrimp have to do with polygamy?”

Sarah stared at him blankly. “It’s—” She sighed. “Never mind.”

Tedd opened his mouth like he was going to pursue the issue, but then he stopped and shook his head. “Right.”

“It may be that her concern is for your soul. If she truly believes that what you’re doing is morally wrong, perhaps she’s just trying to protect you,” Grace mused.

“Eh. I… don’t _think_ so? That’s not something that we’ve ever discussed. Our church is fairly… relaxed, theologically speaking. Not hellfire and damnation. More warm and fuzzy. Hence Pastor Ingram, for example.”

“But that’s not what your mother grew up believing,” said Edward. “Even if she has moved away from the church of her youth, she may still have a deep-seated reaction to, ah, non-traditional liaisons that she can ignore where others are concerned, but not for her children.”

“Yeah. I suppose.” Sarah flopped back against the couch and tilted her head back, staring at the ceiling. “I’m sure she’ll… calm down, get over it, eventually. She did with Carol. I just wish I didn’t have to live through the intervening weeks, or months, between now and then. Carol at least was living in a dorm at the time, and didn’t have to see Mom every day.”

“Maybe if you see your mother every day, it’ll get easier faster, instead of taking weeks or months like it did for Carol,” Grace suggested.

“Eh. Maybe. I can hope.”

Sarah jerked in startlement at the sound of the doorbell. “What?” She looked around at the other three, but they all seemed equally clueless as to who was at the door. Grace, being closest to the door, got up to answer it.

 _Oh. Of course._ Sarah thought with dismay, hearing her father’s voice at the door.

“Hello Grace. Is Sarah here?”

“Um. Yes. Hello, Mr. Brown. Mrs. Brown.” Sarah could only see Grace’s back from where she sat, but she seemed to be frozen in place. Tedd moved as if to pull away from Sarah a little bit, but she reached up and clamped a hand onto his hand, holding it in place on her shoulder. _I will not hide._ She squeezed Tedd’s hand, then let go.

“May we come in?” asked her mother, in a surprisingly gentle tone of voice.

Grace seemed to shake herself, and she pushed the outer door open, and stepped aside. “Sure. Sorry. Come on in.”

Sarah’s parents stepped into the living room. Her mother’s eyes skipped over Sarah and Tedd, and went to Edward first. “Hello, Edward.” Her father looked at Sarah first. Whatever he saw there seemed to relax him a little, which puzzled Sarah.

Edward stood up and shook hands with both of Sarah’s parents. “Rachel. Rob. How are you folks doing?” he asked.

“Hanging in,” said Rob, with a wry smile.

“I’ve been better,” Rachel said, unwittingly echoing Sarah’s earlier statement.

Sarah took advantage of her mother’s attention being focused on Edward to shoot Grace a look, and pat the couch beside her, where she had been sitting a moment ago. Grace’s eyebrows shot up, but Sarah gave a sharp nod. Grace slipped quietly back into her seat. Sarah grabbed her hand and held it tightly.

Edward said, “Tedd, would you go grab a couple of chairs from the kitchen, please?”

“Uh… sure.” Tedd shot Sarah a worried glance, then got up and headed to the kitchen. Sarah felt his absence as a cool spot at her side.

“That’s not really necessary—” began Rachel, then she looked around the room for a place to sit.

“Well, yes, you _could_ all fit on the couch, but I’m not sure sitting in a long line is the best seating arrangement for meaningful conversation,” said Edward.

“Right.” Sarah’s mother looked at Sarah for the first time. An array of emotions flickered across her face, too fast for Sarah to register them all. They settled on a slightly sad smile. “Hello, Sarah-bear.”

Sarah’s heart jumped at the affectionate childhood nickname. “Hi, Mom.” She glanced at her father, who was watching them both with a faintly worried look on his face. “Dad.” There followed an awkward pause as Tedd dragged two kitchen chairs into the room, and set them up facing the couch.

“Thanks, Tedd,” said Rob. Rachel just nodded to Tedd, and they both sat down. Tedd resumed his seat beside Sarah, and took her free hand in his. Rachel looked at the three of them, holding hands together, and sighed.

“Ah. So… it’s real?”

“Beg pardon?” asked Edward.

Rachel gestured towards the couch. “It sounded so outré, I had thought maybe it was a bad joke, designed to make being… _merely_ bisexual seem like not such a bad thing after all.” She frowned at Edward. “How long have _you_ known about this, this…” She trailed off, seeming to lack the words to finish the sentence as she waved at the triad again.

Edward regarded her levelly, not responding to her accusatory tone. “They just told me today, too, actually. It seems it’s coming-out day for our children.” He glanced at the couch, and amended, “Our young adults.”

Rachel grimaced.

“Yes, it’s real, Mom,” Sarah said, a little annoyed at being talked about as if the three of them weren’t there. “You think I would lie to you about something like this? You think I enjoyed fighting with you? I _hate_ it.”

Rachel looked at her for a moment, nodded, and said softly, “Me too.”

Sarah bit her lip for a moment, then asked, “So… can we not? Not fight, I mean?”

Her mother’s gaze flickered to the left and the right, taking in Grace and Tedd, Sarah realized. She sighed, and said, “I find this all… very hard to accept. To even… imagine.” She shook her head. “If you hadn’t told me, I would never in a million years have guessed you were involved in a, a, triad. I would have just assumed that… _they_ … were a couple, and you were just a friend of theirs.”

“ _They_ have names, Mom.”

Rachel looked at Tedd and Grace again, and nodded. She gave a sad little smile. “I know. I’m sorry, Grace. Tedd. That’s part of what’s so different from your sister. I already know your… partners. Know and like them.”

Sarah felt a small surge of hope at that admission. She glanced at her father and Edward, then sideways at Tedd and Grace, all quietly watching this dialogue.

“Some small part of me wishes you’d left me in ignorance. Let me carry on making my assumptions.”

Sarah considered that for a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t. Even with… the fighting. _Not_ telling you would be like lying to you. A lie of omission. And I don’t like doing that.”

Her mother nodded. “Thank you for that, at least.”

“And… not telling you. Hiding it. Was beginning to feel as if I was ashamed of them. Of us. And I’m not.” She tightened her grip on Tedd’s and Grace’s hands. “I love them, Mom. It’s just as simple as that.” Her mother squeezed her eyes shut, and looked pained. “I’m sorry if that bothers you. But… it’s not going to stop.”

Rachel nodded, her eyes still shut. Sarah waited for a few long moments, wondering what else she could say to make her mother see her point of view. Finally, Rachel sighed and opened her eyes. She looked down at Sarah’s hands, holding her lovers’ hands. Then she looked up and made eye contact with Sarah again.

“Sarah… your father told me what you asked him this morning.”

“Er… which?” Sarah frowned, puzzled as to which particular question her mother was referring to.

“About whether he thought I would… disown you.”

“Oh. That.”

Her mother stared into her eyes intently. Sarah was startled to see her mother’s eyes welling up with tears.

“Sweetheart… I may not understand, or approve of what you’re doing, but— _never._ Never never never. I’m sorry. That you felt you even had to ask that question.”

Sarah sucked in a sharp breath, some tension inside her chest releasing at that reassurance. She blinked rapidly, and smiled hesitantly back at her mother. “That’s… that’s good to know.”

“Hearing that you asked that… that you felt you _had_ to ask that. Made me stop and think about what’s important. And what’s important is that I love you. Nothing you say, or do, or are, will ever change that.”

Sarah let go of Tedd's and Grace’s hands, stood up, and took the two steps over to where her mother sat. She stood there awkwardly for a moment, tears leaking down her cheeks, before she sank to the floor at her mother’s feet, wrapped her arms around her mother’s waist and placed her head in her lap. And cried.

Sarah hadn’t even been fully aware of how tense and scared she was, until her mother’s words released those fears. She cried quiet tears of relief, and her mother stroked her hair as she did, murmuring soft words of love and assurance.

After a minute, Sarah sat up, and wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve. She was surprised to see her mother’s face was also wet with tears, as she smiled down at her. “I love you, too, Mom,” she said.

The outside world intruded on the two of them in the form of a tissue box, held out to them by Edward. Sarah sat up and gave a short laugh. “Thanks,” she said, as she took a few tissues and blew her nose, her mother doing likewise.

“I’m sorry, Edward,” said Rachel. “We didn’t mean to bring all this emotional drama down on your house.”

“No apologies needed,” said Edward. Sarah was surprised to see him take a tissue to wipe at his eyes too. She glanced back over her shoulder at Tedd and Grace, to see they were holding hands and watching her, a tentative smile on Grace’s damp face.

Sarah turned back to her mother, and looked up at her. “Thank you for that.”

Her mother smiled back, and brushed a lock of Sarah's hair back behind her ear. “No thanks needed,” she said. “Loving you is the easiest thing in the world. My sweet girl.”

“I agree,” said Grace quietly.

“Very much,” said Tedd.

Rachel looked up at Grace and Tedd. Sarah watched her mother’s face as she bit her lips, studying Tedd and Grace for a long moment. Rachel gave a short, sharp nod, and said, “Be good to my girl. I… don’t understand you, or this… _triad_ thing. But I know you’re good kids. I believe that you mean well. That you care about her. And she cares for you. So… be good to each other. Please.”

“Of course.”

“Always.”

Rachel glanced at Edward, then back down at Sarah. “Like he said. You’re young adults now. A small part of my problem with… this… is accepting that you’re not my little girl any more.”

Edward cleared his throat quietly, and said, “They _are_ growing up. Making their own choices. But I don’t think they’re making these decisions rashly, or lightly.”

Sarah snorted at that. Her parents both gave her questioning looks.

“Uh… No, _not_ lightly. There was a _lot_ of discussions. At the beginning. About what being in a… a non-traditional relationship means. Both personally, and socially.” She glanced back at her lovers, and added, “We’re still working it out.”

“I don’t know if this helps to hear, Mrs. Brown,” Grace said gently, “but we would never do anything to hurt Sarah.”

“We love her, too,” Tedd said.

Rachel frowned a little, and grimaced, but nodded. “Right.”

Sarah gave her mother a little squeeze, then sat up and scooted backwards across the carpet to sit leaning against Tedd's and Grace’s legs. Grace rested a hand on her shoulder. Sarah glanced at her father, pleased to see that he was more looking relaxed. She shot him a brief smile, which he returned. She turned her attention back to her mother, and said, “So. I… get that you don’t understand our relationship. Or even fully approve of it. But… can you live with it? With us?”

Her mother regarded her soberly, thinking for several long moments. “You’re right. I don’t understand. I… find I _can’t_ approve. But… I can accept that this is your life. Your… love.” She glanced sideways at her husband for a moment, then gave a wry smile. “You’re lucky you had your sister before you, to blaze a trail for you.”

Sarah smiled. “I’ll be sure to thank her, next time I see her.”

 _So. I guess I’ve still got a mother,_ she thought with some relief. _She may not like this, but she’s not going to cut me out of her life._

She took a deep breath, and slowly let it out, trying to relax. She was amused to notice her mother mirroring her behavior. Everyone else in the room seemed to be relaxing a bit too, as much of the tension between Sarah and her mother dissipated.

Edward cleared his throat, and said, “If you’ll pardon a change of topic. We were going to order in pizza for dinner tonight. Would you care to join us?”

Sarah glanced at her parents, who were looking at each other. She didn’t see anything pass between them, but her father said, “Thanks, but I’ve got a pork loin already marinating at home.” He smiled, and added, “And also, I think we could use some time alone to discuss things.”

“Of course. Sarah?”

Sarah looked at her mother and father, then said, “Thanks, but I think I’ll have dinner with my folks.” She turned to Tedd and Grace. “Can you pick me up after dinner for the movie?”

“Of course, sweetie,” said Grace.

“About six forty-five still all right?” asked Tedd. Sarah nodded.

Everyone stood up, and as her parents said their good-byes to Edward, she gave Tedd and Grace a big hug. She didn’t let go for a long moment, and murmured, “Thanks, you guys. I love you.”

“Love you too, sweetie.”

“Love you.”

Sarah pulled out of the hug and looked up to see her father watching them, with a small fond smile on his face.

But she only saw her mother’s back, as she was already walking out the front door. Sarah sighed. _Right. One step at a time_.

She turned to Edward, and paused. “Thank you,” she said.

He smiled quizzically. “For what?”

“For being accepting. And helping.” Impulsively, she stepped forward, and wrapped her arms around him in a hug. After a startled pause, he gave her a gentle hug back. “And… thank you for Tedd. And Grace.” As she let go and stepped back, she could see he looked rather bemused at that.

She glanced at Tedd and Grace, said, “Later, guys,” and walked out the door with her father. As they walked down the sidewalk to the curb where her parents’ car was waiting, she took his hand in hers and squeezed it. She said, “And thank you, too. For your support and help.”

“I didn’t say much, in there,” her father said.

“You apparently said enough, before,” Sarah said.

Sarah regarded her mother as they approached her. She was standing by the car waiting, arms crossed, frowning at the ground.

 _I don’t think she liked seeing us hug._ Sarah sighed. _This disagreement isn’t totally over yet._

Rachel looked up as they arrived at the car. Sarah looked at her mother for a moment, then pulled her into a hug. “Thanks, Mom. I know I may not be the easiest daughter in the world, but you’re the best mom.”

Her mother snorted and shook her head in disagreement at that, but hugged her back. “I _do_ love you, dear.”

“And I love you.”

As Sarah got into the car, she glanced back at the house, to see Tedd and Grace standing in the doorway, watching them. She waved to them, and they waved back, before closing the front door. She felt like she could feel that door closing, viscerally, cutting her off from her lovers. _I’ll be back, loves,_ she told them silently. _No matter what._ A new thought occurred to her as she contemplated that fact. _Mom, and Dad, are my past. Tedd and Grace are my future._

With that perspective, the upcoming dinner-time conversation didn’t feel quite so daunting. _At least we’re talking. And loving. Which is better than I’d feared. We’ll make this work._ She relaxed a little into her seat, and blew out a relieved breath.

_We’ll make this work._

 

 

 

 

 


	7. Shopping

They walked past the entrance to the store two times, pacing up and down the length of the block, before Grace said, “All right, this is getting ridiculous.” On the next pass, she grabbed Tedd and Sarah’s hands and pulled them toward the door. Fortunately it opened inward, so she could open it with her shoulder.

Once inside, she let go of their hands, and said, “There. We’re in.”

Sarah grit her teeth, annoyed with how red she was sure her face was, as she looked around. She kept her gaze deliberately not focused on any one object as she made a quick sweep of the store. Her initial impression surprised her. The store looked like… a store. She wasn’t quite sure exactly what she had been expecting, but something this clean and brightly lit and innocuous, almost like a drugstore, hadn’t been it.

“Hunh. Okay. Cool,” said Tedd, sounding like he was similarly surprised.

“Excuse me,” said a voice behind them. They turned as one to see a clerk behind the cash register. Sarah was a little surprised at how normal she looked. She was just a little older than themselves, dressed in a pretty black blouse, with a store name tag that said ‘Carlita’. The only even slightly outré thing about her was an eyebrow ring. “I’m sorry, but you have to be eighteen to be in here.”

“Oh, we’re all over eighteen,” said Grace cheerily. “Tedd and Sarah just look young for their age.” Sarah glowered at her girlfriend, and noticed Tedd doing the same.

Carlita looked skeptical. “Right. Can I see some ID, please?”

“Sure,” said Tedd, and all three of them pulled out their drivers licenses.

The clerk glanced at their IDs, then said apologetically, “Thanks. Sorry for the hassle, but the cops sometimes come in to check up on us.”

“No problem,” said Grace.

“Can I help you find anything?” asked Carlita.

“Uh…” Sarah was still tongue-tied with embarrassment. Grace, of course, was not.

“Our cat chewed up our dildo, and we’re looking for a replacement. Plus we need some more lube. And just looking around for new toys in general, I guess.”

Carlita shook her head and grinned. “I swear, cats are responsible for a quarter of our repeat business in dildos. Although one fellow last week lost his to his ferret.” She pointed off to the right and said, “Aisle three has most of the dildos, although a few of the more specialized ones are in the display case at the end of the aisle. Lubes are at the far end of the next aisle over.”

“Great! Thanks,” said Grace. “Oh, and what about butt-plugs?” she asked, ratcheting up Sarah’s blush yet another notch.

“Right next to the lubes.”

“Thanks,” Grace said again, and she headed off towards the dildos. Sarah and Tedd perforce followed.

Sarah tried to simply follow Grace, but her attention kept getting distracted by the merchandise they passed. She’d read of some of these things, but not seen them in person. _And what on earth is_ that _thing for?_ she wondered, not daring to stop and more closely examine the oddly shaped… object. She suspected its use was probably far more prosaic than her lurid imagination suggested, but she didn’t want to get separated from Tedd and Grace, so she just walked on by.

Grace lead them to the dildos first, and Sarah was almost instantly overwhelmed. The sheer number of variations was boggling. Size, color, texture, realistic or abstract, vibrating or oscillating or non-electric; there were well over a hundred different models to look at. Sarah was glad Grace was with her. If it had been just her, she was sure she would have just grabbed the first thing that looked even vaguely appropriate and bolted for the cash register. She forced herself to stop, and look over the proffered options, as Grace and Tedd did the same.

“Oh, look, Sarah, they have one for you,” said Grace, holding up a box containing a relatively small-looking dildo, connected by a hose to large rubber bulb.

“Why? What’s that?” Sarah asked, puzzled.

“It’s inflatable. You can make it larger as you’re using it.” She flipped the box over to show Sarah the diagram on the back. Sarah gulped, amazed at how large the deceptively small device could grow.

“She hardly needs that, when she has you,” murmured Tedd. Sarah was grateful that he, at least, was keeping his comments somewhat sotto voce.

“Well, maybe for use at home, when we can’t be together?” suggested Grace.

Sarah looked at her lovers, both giving her cheerfully lecherous smiles, and sighed. “Thanks, but no.” She turned away to examine the displays on the other side of the aisle. She drifted down the aisle, too overwhelmed by the plethora of options to actually pick any one item out for consideration.

Sarah hadn’t realized what “specialized” meant in terms of dildos, until she came to the end of the aisle, and found the display case there.

“Oh!” she said, at a loss for words. “Uh… jeez.” The sheer outrageousness of some of the models on display was so beyond ludicrous as to be almost comedic. And yet, she also felt a faint flutter of arousal contemplating some of them. The scale of them. The implied challenge of them. For some of them, their animal nature. She unconsciously licked her lips. The display was almost hypnotic.

Grace looked up at her exclamation, and wandered down to join her. Her eyebrows shot up as she contemplated the display. “Hmm. I think even _you_ might have difficulty handling some of those.”

Sarah shut her eyes, and hoped that none of the other customers were within earshot. “ _Thank_ you, _dear_ ,” she muttered through clenched teeth. “Let’s just tell the whole store I’m a size queen, shall we?”

Grace just patted her arm and said, “Don’t worry, sweetie, no one here knows us.”

“That’s _not_ the point…” Sarah began to protest, then gave up with a sigh.

“Wow.” Tedd’s attention had been drawn to the display by their discussion. “Bad Dragon?” he read the brand name of several of the more attractive models. “Yeah, some of those look like they might have come from a dragon.”

 _Or a particularly large breed of dog,_ thought Sarah. _Or a horse…_ She opened her eyes and looked quickly around before looking back at the display. Thankfully, no other customers seemed to be paying any attention to them. Almost reluctantly, she looked back at the display case, where a large purple and lilac, ridged dildo drew her eye. It was beautifully sculpted, and looked not in the least bit human. Or mammalian. She swallowed. “Kelvin the Ice Dragon?” she read the name of the model bemusedly. Its scales and ridges truly did look like it belonged to an imaginary creature.

Then she looked at the label again, and her eyes went wider. “That’s a _medium_?”

Then she looked at the price tag “A hundred _dollars?_ ” she squeaked.

“Yeah, those are pricey, but they’re hand-made. Excellent quality,” said Carlita’s voice behind her. Sarah jumped, and spun around, face flaming red. The clerk smiled. “You want me to pull any of those out of the case for a closer look?”

“Oh! Uh, no, I was just, uh, curious, that’s all, you know, just looking,” Sarah babbled.

Grace ignored her, and said, “I don’t think we could afford it today, but can we take a closer look at Kelvin there?”

“Sure, no prob,” said Carlita, and she pulled a keychain off her belt to unlock the case.

“That’s really a medium?” asked Tedd as she opened the case.

“Yup. We don’t even bother stocking Bad Dragon’s large or extra-large models unless someone special orders one.”

“ _Extra_ -large?” said Sarah weakly, her imagination boggling.

“Those are larger,” observed Grace, pointing to some other dildos, of different brands, floppy translucent red and the size of her forearm.

“Yeah, but those are cheap, and cheaply made. I think most people who buy those get them as jokes, not for actual use. We sell a lot to tipsy sorority girls.”

Sarah wondered who would get drunk before coming to a sex shop. Then she considered that again, and realize she’d probably be a lot more relaxed if she’d had a glass of wine before coming in. _Maybe next time… if there_ is _a next time._

“How often does someone special order a large? Or extra-large?” asked Tedd curiously.

“About once a month, actually. Here,” said the clerk, and she handed Kelvin to Grace.

Grace squeezed the draconian dildo, and ran a finger over the ridges along one edge. “Huh. Cool. Feels nice.”

“Yeah, like I said, they’re quality products. Pure silicone. You can order different firmnesses and colors, if you want.”

“Here, Sarah,” said Grace, handing the monster phallus to Sarah. “What do you think?”

Sarah reflexively accepted the proffered dildo, and was shocked at the weight of it. The density and heft seemed to make it somehow all the more real, despite its long, tapering, other-worldly design. She gulped quietly, and gently squeezed it. She was shocked to realize that her hand came nowhere near to being able to wrap around the entire circumference of the base. She felt a blush rising as she almost involuntarily imagined slowly lowering herself onto such a monster. She took a deep breath.

“Uh. Nice,” she said, somewhat inanely. She hesitantly stroked the ridges along the top edge, much like Grace had, and admired the texture. Then she licked her lips, and handed it hurriedly to Tedd. She glanced back at Grace, who was looking at her with a small smile, her pupils dilated. _Carp. She knows_ just _how turned on I am._ Normally Sarah found Grace’s enhanced senses a benefit, but at the moment it was just embarrassing.

“That’s pretty,” remarked Tedd. “Can’t imagine ever fitting it _in_ anywhere,” his gaze flicked to Sarah momentarily, much to Sarah’s mild annoyance, “at least, not for myself.”

Carlita chuckled. “Yeah, they’re specialized items. But for folks who are into that sort of thing, they’re great.”

Tedd handed Kelvin back to the clerk, and they declined her offer to check out any of the other items in the case. Sarah turned away and drifted over to the next aisle, where the lubes were located. Maybe if she found what they needed there, it would speed up their exit from the store, and its assorted embarrassments.

There were almost as many lubes as there were dildos, but at least Sarah could examine them without feeling like she was staring at a wall of disembodied genitalia. It was more like shopping in a drugstore.

Her attention was caught by a hand-written sign, _Staff Pick!_ She was intrigued by the calligraphy of the sign as much as the content. It evidenced a practiced hand, the lettering precise, yet still florid and dynamic. Sarah was a bit envious.

“That’s my favorite lube,” said Carlita behind her, making Sarah jump a little. She wished the sales clerk would stop sneaking up on her.

“Uh, actually, I was just admiring the calligraphy,” admitted Sarah. “Though we do need a new lube.”

“Oh, thanks. I do most of the signage.”

Sarah looked at the clerk in surprise. “Really?”

Carlita grinned. “Yeah, I’m a graphic arts student. I just work here part-time, mostly to pay for materials. Well, that, and for the employee discount.”

“Ah.” Sarah picked up the recommended lube, and glanced at the label. “‘Safe for all toys,’” she read, and frowned a little at the implication. “Some lubes aren’t?”

“Oh, no. You don’t want to used silicone-based lubes on a silicone toy. It actually can start to dissolve the toy, turning it into a sticky gloopy mess.”

“Yuck.”

“Yeah, and an expensive mistake, if you’ve just spent a hundred dollars on Kelvin or the like.”

“Yeah.” Sarah didn’t know if Grace and Tedd were picking out a silicone toy, but she figured better safe than sorry. She hesitated a moment, the put down the bottle she’d picked up, and grabbed the next larger size. The longer it took to run out, the longer they could avoid coming back here, she figured.

“Can I help you find anything else?” asked Carlita cheerfully.

“Uh, no, thanks. I’ll just see what my… friends are getting up to.”

“Sure.” Carlita wandered back towards the cash register, and Sarah headed back to the embarrassing dildo aisle.

As she rounded the corner, she heard Grace murmuring to Tedd “…Christmas, maybe?” Then Grace and Tedd looked up at her, their faces vaguely guilty.

It took Sarah a moment to process what she’d heard, then she glowered. “If that… _thing_ … shows up under my Christmas tree, to be opened in front of my parents, I shall slowly flay you both alive.”

Grace and Tedd both looked startled. “We’d _never_ do anything like that to you, sweetie,” protested Grace.

“Yeah, we’d give it to you in private. So we could try it out sooner,” said Tedd.

Sarah flushed, and looked down. “Sorry,” she muttered. “Of course you wouldn’t. I’m just a little… discombobulated. Being in here.”Then she looked back up, glanced at the display case, and gave her lovers a small smile. “And, really, you don’t need to be spending that kind of money on toys for me, when I’ve already got the best sex toys in the world.”

“Oh, so we’re your toys now, are we?” asked Tedd teasingly.

Sarah relaxed a little, and grinned back. “The bestest toys in the world. Ones who can love me back.” Grace leaned over and gave Sarah a quick peck on the cheek, making Sarah smile and blush.

“What did you get?” asked Grace, pointing to the bottle in Sarah’s hand.

“Lube. Carlita’s favorite, and it’s safe for all toys and, uh, anal use.” She noted their hands were empty, and asked, “Any ideas for what to get in a new dildo?” She turned back to the aisle of toys, which now all seemed a bit less intimidating, in comparison to the specialized items in the display case.

“I was thinking something vibrating would be nice,” said Tedd.

“And silicone feels nice,” said Grace. “At least, it did on Kelvin.”

The three of them started working their way through the assorted offerings, comparing and contrasting different models and costs. After about fifteen minutes of this, as they narrowed their choices down to their top three, Sarah giggled.

“What’s so funny?” asked Tedd.

“It’s… I was so nervous walking in here. And now we’re standing here debating the merits of wall plug-in versus USB rechargeable electric vibes.” Sarah shook her head. “It’s amazing how quickly something can become normal.”

“Oh, if you want to feel _un_ -normal again, just check out aisle five,” said Grace with a little grin.

“Ah…” Sarah stuck her head around the end of the aisle, to see that the aisle in question had a display of BDSM equipment at its end-cap. “No. Thanks. I think I’ve pushed my comfort limits far enough for today.” Tedd and Grace laughed.

They settled on a model they all liked, then headed for the check-out. Carlita smiled at them as they came up. “Find everything you needed?”

Grace smiled back and nodded. “Yup. Took us a while to come to a consensus, but we’ll take this. Oh, and this lube,” as Sarah put the bottle on the counter next to their choice of dildo.

“Couldn’t find a butt-plug you liked?” asked Carlita.

“No, it’s just, this is already more than we’d planned on spending. So it’ll have to wait for another time,” said Tedd. He watched curiously as Carlita pulled the dildo out of its box, and pulled a USB cord out from under the register. “Ah, what are you doing?”

“We test all vibrating toys before they leave the store. There are no returns allowed,” explained the clerk. “For health reasons.”

“Oh. Yeah, that makes sense,” said Tedd.

She switched on the vibrator, and Sarah was relieved to hear that it was relatively quiet. Carlita cycled it through its different intensities and pulse patterns, then nodded and pulled the plug back out. “Seems to work just fine,” she said. She expertly re-boxed it, then rang it up, along with the lube. She pulled out a small bottle of liquid, and added it to their bag, saying, “With all purchases over fifty dollars, you get a free sample bottle of toy cleaner. It’ll help clean and disinfect your toys. Don’t forget to wash yours before its first use.”

“Thanks,” said Grace, as she paid for their new toy.

“If you don’t mind my asking… are you guys a poly group?” asked Carlita.

The triad glanced at one another, and they all shrugged. “Yes,” said Sarah, a little hesitantly. “How could you tell?” It was the first time that someone not a friend had notice they were a triad, that they knew of.

Carlita grinned. “I could hear you debating the merits of the various different models. It was pretty clear from the way you talked that you were all going to be using it together. Which reminds me, if you’re going to be using it anally as well as vaginally, you should put a condom on it first.”

“Ah, yeah. We know. We do,” said Tedd.

“You guys know about polychicago dot com?”

“Uh… no? What’s that?”

“Local polyamory support group. They have meet-ups and cocktail parties, which I guess you’re too young for, but there are other meetings, workshops and karaoke and such.”

Sarah blinked. “Karaoke?”

“What, you forgot how to sing when you picked up a second lover?”

Sarah giggled. “Well, no, I guess not.” She cocked her head curiously. “How do you know all this?”

Carlita laughed, and waved her hand at the store. “I work in a sex shop? I deal with people in non-traditional lifestyles every day. You’re not even the first poly group through here today.”

“Ah. So you’re not, uh…”

“Nope. I’m boringly monogamous and straight.” She held up her left hand and wiggled her fingers, displaying an engagement ring. “Even got him to say yes when I proposed.”

“Congratulations,” said Sarah reflexively.

“Thanks for your help,” said Grace, as she took the bag.

“You’re welcome. Let me know if you need a special order of Kelvin or some such.” Sarah’s blush, which had faded away over the last twenty minutes, returned in force.

“We will,” said Tedd with a grin.

“I do _not_ need that for Christmas,” muttered Sarah, as they exited the store.

“Need? No. But _want_?” Grace grinned lasciviously at her girlfriend. “You smelled _delicious_ while checking out Kelvin.”

“Gah!” Sarah glowered half-heartedly at Grace. “You just love making me blush, don’t you?”

“It’s your own fault,” Grace said. “You’re just so darn cute.”

Sarah glanced around to make sure there weren’t any other pedestrians nearby on the sidewalk, then leaned in close and said softly, “The only monster-cock I want inside me is _yours_ , my furry little monster.”

That won her a warm smile from Grace, and Tedd laughed.

“Come on, my loves,” said Tedd. “Let’s go home and try out our new toy.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Zee McZed for the initial seed of inspiration :-).
> 
> [Kelvin](http://bad-dragon.com/products/kelvin)
> 
> And this is a [size medium.](http://assets.bad-dragon.com/images/product_images/00430_full.jpg)
> 
>  **NSFW** links, perhaps obviously...
> 
> And [PolyChicago.com](https://polychicago.com) is a real thing. In case you live in Moperville. Or nearby.


	8. Acorns

Sarah was glad she was able to enter Tedd and Grace’s dorm by slipping in on the heels of some other students entering the building. She could have called up to Grace for admittance, but this trip to MIT was an unscheduled surprise visit, and she wanted to see Tedd and Grace’s faces when she showed up at their door.

She had visited the dorm once before, so she only got a little turned around while finding Grace’s room. She paused to catch her breath after climbing the stairs. She was surprised at how her pulse and breathing immediately picked up again, and her stomach began to flutter with excitement, as she approached the door at the end of the hall decorated with a cartoon squirrel. She set her backpack down beside the door, so as to be better prepared for hugs. She nervously brushed her hair back behind her ear, then knocked on the door.

To no response.

She knocked again, louder. Still no response.

“Well… carp,” she muttered. She knew Grace and Tedd didn’t have classes on Friday evenings, but she hadn’t considered the fact that they might be out elsewhere. Working in a lab, or studying at the library. Or going to a late dinner. Sarah briefly considered that they might be at Tedd’s room, but that seemed unlikely—Tedd had two roommates, unlike Grace. Grace was lucky enough to have a single room by virtue of being an alien student, and this year she was the only Uryuom freshman.

She was standing there, trying to figure out what her next step was, when the door opened, revealing a dark room and a sleep-rumpled Tedd rubbing his eyes. “Sorry, Grace isn’t— _Sarah!”_ His sleepiness vanished in an instant, and he threw his arms around her in a bear hug. Sarah laughed as he squeezed her tight, and hugged him back. After a few moments of hugging, he let loose enough to find her lips with his. Sarah melted into the kiss, weeks of lonely tension dropping from her shoulders as they hungrily explored each others’ mouths.

“Oooh, naughty naughty, Tedd. Better hope Grace doesn’t find out,” came a lilting voice from behind Sarah. She and Tedd broke apart, and Sarah saw him roll his eyes a little before stepping around her, not letting go of her waist as he did so.

“Very funny, Indrani. Grace knows all about Sarah. Not that it’s any of your business.” Sarah looked back down the hall to see a voluptuous young woman who looked like she was of East Indian ancestry looking at them from the open doorway of the next-door room.

“It’s my business if you’re going to break my girlfriend’s heart,” Indrani shot back with a grin.

“ _My_ girlfriend, Drani. Mine. As is Sarah.” Tedd had a slightly smug smile as he delivered this news.

Indrani’s eyebrows shot up. “ _Two_ girlfriends? Getting greedy, are you?” Her eyes traveled up and down the length of Sarah’s body, then she said, “Tell you what, you can have the cute little blonde. _I’ll_ take Grace.”

Tedd laughed, and Sarah smiled somewhat nervously. “Not a chance,” he said. “Besides which, Grace is rather attached to Sarah too.”

Indrani looked surprised. “Truly? You’re a poly group?”

“Yup. Sarah, this lecherous woman trying to steal our Grace is Indrani. She’s been hitting on Grace for the past few months.”

“Without any success,” Indrani grumbled. “Now I see why. I was sure my gaydar was telling me she wasn’t totally straight, but I didn’t know she was already getting some trim on the side.”

Sarah flushed a little, and said, somewhat stiffly, “Nice to meet you.”

Indrani laughed. “No, it’s not. I’m rude and annoying, and I’m probably getting in the way of your reunion sex right now.”

“Too true,” said Tedd. “So kindly bugger off, and we’ll see you later.” He turned around, his arm still around Sarah’s waist, and guided them into Grace’s room. He shut the door with a definite ‘click’, flipped on the lights, and turned back to Sarah. “Now. Where were we?” he smiled, slipping his arms around her waist.

Sarah smiled back, peeled off her coat, and wrapped her arms around him. She buried her nose in his hair and breathed in his scent. “It’s so good to see you. To feel you,” she said.

“Likewise. What are you—”

Tedd was cut off by a series of sharp loud raps on Grace’s door. He slumped a little, forehead-to-forehead with Sarah, and muttered, “I’m going to kill her.” He let go of Sarah and turned to open the door. “What _now_ , Drani?”

Indrani stood in the doorway, holding Sarah’s backpack out in one hand. “Thought your spare girlfriend might need her deodorant and tampons.”

Tedd glowered at Indrani, “She is _not_ my ‘spare’ anything, you—oh, why am I even talking to you?” He grabbed the backpack from her hand, and closed the door on her laughing face.

Sarah wasn’t sure if she should be mortally offended, or laughing hysterically, so she settled for giggling a little at Tedd’s annoyed expression. “Is she always like that?”

Tedd sighed. “Yeah, pretty much. Sorry about that. Grace let her know up-front that she was in a committed relationship and had no interest in her, but I think she keeps hitting on Grace just to be annoying. It’s not like she’s lacking for companionship.”

“Oh?”

“Let’s just say, you don’t need to keep your voice down during sex for her sake. She is easily the noisiest person I’ve ever heard during sex.”

“Had a lot of experience with that, have you?” Sarah asked, grinning.

“Well, I’ve found the stereotype of MIT students being asexual nerds to be a lie. And the dorm room walls aren’t nearly as thick as one might like.” Then he shook his head, and smiled at Sarah again. “But, what are you _doing_ here? I thought we weren’t going to get to see you again until next month.”

“I know, but I missed you guys too much. And I finished two major projects this week, which means my weekend is pretty open, so I thought I’d sneak up to visit my loves.” She leaned forward and gave him another kiss, tender and gentle this time. It lasted a long quiet minute, then she pulled back, feeling a peaceful contentment she’d been missing for weeks. She smiled at him. “Oh, I’ve missed you so.” She glanced around the tiny room. “Where’s Grace?”

Tedd stroked her cheek and said, “She’s at the materials science lab. Got an experiment running that she needs to babysit for the next four or five hours.”

Sarah considered that for a moment. “I don’t suppose it’s a lab with a quiet corner where three people could sneak off for a spot of snogging?”

Tedd shook his head. “No such luck. Even if we didn’t interrupt the experiment itself, she’s working with three other people, so privacy would be a little lacking.”

“Oh.” She tried to keep a straight face, but her mouth kept twitching up at the corners. “So. How _ever_ shall we amuse ourselves for the next four or five hours, Mister Verres?” She slipped her hands under the hem of his t-shirt and stroked his back.

Tedd grinned back at her, and steered them toward the unmade bed at the side of the room. “Well, I’m sure we can think of _something_ to do with our time, Ms. Brown. Like, say, Parcheesi?”

“Or obnoxiously loud sex to annoy the neighbors?”

Tedd snorted. “Fair warning, I’m not so sure it actually annoys her. I think she gets off on it.”

Sarah tugged Tedd’s shirt up, and he obligingly lifted his arms so she could peel it off his body. “Fuck her. But not literally.” She bent forward and licked his left nipple. Tedd sucked in a hissing breath, and Sarah felt her own nipples harden in sympathetic response.

“Yeah,” Tedd gasped. “She doesn’t deserve this good.”

“Sweetie?” Sarah said, as she slipped out of her own shirt, and unclasped her bra. “Let’s stop talking about the obnoxious neighbor.”

Tedd smiled at her as he unbuttoned his jeans. “Who?”

“Right. For now, it’s just you and me.” Sarah flopped back into the bed, which smelled deliciously of Grace, and raised her arms invitingly. “Come here, my love.”

* * *

Sarah felt like she’d only been asleep a short while when the sound of the door opening woke her. She opened her eyes to see Grace’s silhouette in the doorway, then she heard Grace sniff the air and say, “What—Sarah?… _Sarah!_ ”

The next she knew she was being hugged to within an inch of her life, with poor Tedd being squashed against the wall behind her. She laughed in delight at Grace’s reaction, but after a minute, had to gasp “Air… I need air!”

“Oh! Sorry!” Grace released her, and knelt beside the narrow bed, arms draped across both Sarah and Tedd, who were spooned together to fit into the one-person bed. Sarah couldn’t see much of Grace’s face, since she was backlit by the hall light behind her, but she could hear the joy in her voice as she asked, “What are you _doing_ here? Why didn’t you tell us you were coming?”

Sarah laughed and gave her a quick kiss. “I’m here because I missed you. And I wanted to surprise you, sweet squirrel. Looks like I succeeded.”

“That you did. Oh, sweetie. I’m so happy to see you.” Grace began to sniffle a little, and Sarah felt her own eyes well up with tears in response. She sat up, the better to hug Grace. She looked out the door over Grace’s shoulder and saw Indrani peering out of her room at them. Sarah squeaked a little in surprise, and hugged Grace closer to her, to shield her nudity from view.

“Wow. You really _are_ a poly group,” Indrani said wonderingly.

Grace sighed, and Tedd groaned. Grace turned her head to the side, unable to turn around with Sarah clinging to her, and said pointedly, “Good _night_ , Indrani.”

“Hey, I’m not the one with my room door wide open,” Indrani said with a smirk.

Tedd started to disentangle himself from the sheets, and said, “Yeah, but I’m the naked man who’s going to close it.”

“Gah!” Indrani snorted with disgust, then pulled her head back into her room and shut her door. Tedd clambered out of the bed and stalked the three short steps over to the door and closed it. Then he went to the desk, and turned on a desk lamp, to provide some illumination less harsh than the overhead fluorescents.

Sarah snorted, and let go of Grace. “Seriously? You scared her off with your penis?”

“Hey, whatever works.”

“She doesn’t know what she’s missing,” Grace smirked, as she took off her jacket and draped it over her desk chair.

“I’m surprised you ever get dressed, in that case,” Sarah said. “Sounds like an effective Drani-repellant.”

“Ah. I see you’ve met her,” Grace said.

“Oh, yeah. But enough about obnoxious neighbor. How _are_ you, sweetie?”

“So much better now that you’re here,” Grace said, and gave Sarah a welcoming kiss.

Sarah surfaced from the kiss a minute later to hear a happy little sigh from Tedd. She looked over at him, still standing nude by the desk, smiling as he watched them.

“I’ve missed having my lovely ladies together,” he said.

“I’ve missed you _both_. So much.” Then she covered her mouth and yawned. “Uhm. What time is it?”

“About two-thirty,” Grace said. Ted rapped the desktop with a knuckle, and Sarah looked over to see an alarm clock there, showing two-thirty-seven. Her eyes focused for a moment on Tedd’s hand, resting on the desktop in the pool of light from the lamp, and her stomach went cold.

“Tedd…” Sarah’s mouth was suddenly dry.

“Yes, love?”

“Your… hand. Did you, uh, change forms recently?”

Tedd looked down at his right hand, and blanched. “Oh, crap.”

“Ah. I take it, that’s a no, then.”

“Uh. No.” He sat down heavily on the chair by the desk.

“What?” Grace looked over at Tedd, frowning slightly, then understanding bloomed in her face. “Oh. You’re not in your safe form, are you.”

“Yeah. I was so excited when Sarah showed up that I, uh, just didn’t think about it.”

Grace turned to Sarah. “What about you? You haven’t by any chance transformed to male recently, have you?”

Sarah shook her head. “I didn’t bring my transformation watches with me to school, since they’re not supposed to work outside of Moperville.”

“Oh.” Grace digested this for a moment, looking at Sarah’s worried face. “And when did your last period end?”

Sarah shut her eyes and sighed. “About a week and a half ago.”

“Ah. So…”

“Yeah. If I _wanted_ to get pregnant, I probably couldn’t have timed it much better.” Sarah rubbed a hand over her lower abdomen absently, wondering what, if anything, was happening inside her.

“I don’t suppose the two of you spent the evening frolicking in purely oral or anal pleasures?” Grace asked hopefully.

“Nope. Fairly vanilla, heteronormative sex,” Tedd said. His mouth twitched in a brief smile. “A couple of times.”

“Okay. Right.” Grace sighed. “Well, it’s not the end of the world. We’ve discussed this possibility before. We just need to get Sarah transformed to male as soon as possible, before fertilization and implantation can occur. That should resolve the issue.”

Sarah felt a little jolt at the thought. The idea for some reason disturbed her. _I don’t want to get pregnant,_ she reminded herself. _So why does the thought of transforming right now bother me?_ She sat, hand on abdomen, and blanched as a sudden realization hit her.

“Holy shit,” she whispered.

“It’s not that bad, sweetie,” Grace reassured her.

Sarah shook her head. “No, it’s not that. It’s just… I just realized something.” She looked up at Tedd and Grace, and said, “I want. Um. I want… to have Tedd’s baby.”

There was no immediate response to that. Tedd and Grace just stared at her, eyes wide.

“Not _now_ ,” she amended hastily. “Right now, bring on the TF gun, or watches, or whatever else you’ve cooked up at school to let me change sex. But…” She pulled Tedd down to sit beside her on the bed. She gave him a gentle kiss, then smiled shyly at him. “Just the thought of being pregnant. With your child. _Someday_ , not now. It… it makes me very happy.”

Tedd sucked in a sharp breath, and he smiled back at Sarah. “Oh, Sarah-my-love…” He pulled her into a tight embrace.

Grace sat on Sarah’s other side, and hugged them both. After a few moments of happy communal silence, Sarah said, “But, seriously. Bring on the TF gun. _Now_.”

“Ah.” Tedd pulled back from the group embrace, wiped at his eyes, and frowned a little. “That might not be as easy as all that.”

“What do you mean? You don’t have it?”

“Not in my dorm room I don’t. The Magic and Alien Technology department is surprisingly tight-fisted about where that kind of tech is allowed.”

“MIT students have a history of pulling elaborate practical jokes,” Grace explained. “MAT is, perhaps justifiably, afraid of what kind of highjinks students might get up to if access to transformation technology isn’t highly controlled.”

“Well. Carp. I suppose the same goes for your watches and other devices?”

“Afraid so.”

“Bother.” Sarah stared at the wall, struggling to think of a solution. She groaned, and flopped back on the bed. She rubbed her forehead. “I’m not good at this kind of thinking at two forty-five in the morning. Especially after getting my brains screwed out. Twice.” Tedd snorted, but looked smug.

“Well, if I’m the only one with any brains left, I suppose it’s up to me,” said Grace.

Sarah looked up at her hopefully. “You have an idea?”

“Well, what if I transform to squirrel form, and sneak into the labs and borrow a transformation bracelet.”

Tedd shook his head. “Sweetie, you’re not the first shape-shifter to walk these halls,” he reminded her. “That kind of caper is already well-guarded against.”

“Oh. Right. Well, can we just wait until the labs open tomorrow morning, and get legitimate access? No capers?”

Tedd thought a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. That should work. Although Professor Kitamura is out of town, we could ask…” he trailed off, then groaned. After a moment, Grace sighed heavily too.

“What? What’s wrong?” asked Sarah.

“We could ask his grad student to give us access,” Tedd said.

“Okay. So? What’s wrong with that?”

“His grad student,” Grace said. “It’s, uh…”

“Indrani,” Sarah guessed.

“Yup.”

“Oy vey,” said Sarah, startling a laugh from Tedd.

“Are you converting to Judaism?”

“No, but my roommate, Becca, is Jewish. She’s been teaching me useful Yiddish phrases.” She sighed. “Oy vey ist _mir_.”

“Well, there _are_ non-magical solutions. Our plan b can always be, Plan B,” Grace suggested.

“Ugh. I’d rather not. My friend Masha used that once, and she spent a whole day in bed, utterly nauseated.”

“Not a fun way to spend your romantic weekend with us.”

“Yeah. So let’s leave that as our last resort.” Sarah considered the matter further. “How soon do I need to transform in order to, uh, have the contraceptive benefits? Do we need to drag Indrani to the lab in the middle of the night, or can this wait until morning?”

“I think we’ve got a couple of days’ leeway, but let me double-check.” Tedd pulled his laptop off the desk, opened it up, and did a quick search. “Yeah, I was right. We have a few days; even _if_ an egg was fertilized, it won’t be implanted in the uterus until three to four days after that. After that point, the safeguards won’t let you transform.”

Sarah blew out a breath, and relaxed a little. “All right then. Let’s get some sleep, and in the morning we’ll ask Indrani for an awkward favor.”

Grace had two mattresses piled on her bed, having coaxed an extra one out of the dorm management. They pulled the mattresses down onto the floor to make a larger sleeping area for the three of them. “I call dibs on the middle,” Grace said.

“You want the gap, you can have it,” Tedd said.

“I want both my sweeties,” she replied.

“You can _definitely_ have that,” Sarah said with a smile.

The three of them curled up together in a stacked-spoons position. Sarah fell asleep content in the feeling Grace’s furry body pressed up against her back, her hand resting on Sarah’s lower belly.

* * *

The morning began with another round of reunion sex, this time with Grace, and with Tedd in her female form. She hadn’t said anything about the sex change, but Sarah suspected it was partly just Tedd being Tedd, and partly Tedd avoiding any additional risk.

As they cuddled together in the afterglow, Sarah’s thoughts returned to the problem of asking the obnoxious neighbor for help.

“If Indrani is a grad student, what is she doing living in a dorm?” asked Sarah.

“A lot of the alien students prefer to stay in the dorms, even grad students,” said Grace. “This floor is restricted to only MAT students: aliens, magic users, and techs.”

Sarah’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Indrani’s an alien?”

“She’s a Miktela. There are fewer than a dozen on Earth, to the best of my knowledge.”

Sarah laughed. “If she’s a typical example, it may be because the others were all chased off the planet.”

“Or strangled,” muttered Tedd.

Grace grinned. “No; one of her mothers is a xenolinguistics professor here, and she’s very sweet.”

“Multiple mothers? And she’s a lesbian? Is that typical for, uh, Miktelas, or just her?”

“The whole race identifies as female, in human terms. I’ve never studied their biology, so I’m not sure how they reproduce. But she’s sufficiently compatible with human anatomy to have slept with a significant chunk of MAT. Of the female half, that is.”

“But she hasn’t charmed her way into _your_ bed, yet,” Sarah teased.

Grace sighed. “Not for lack of trying.”

“She can be _very_ trying, at times,” Tedd added.

Sarah shook her head, and stroked Grace’s fur. “Given how easy-going and friendly you are, she must really work at it to get under your skin that much. I don’t suppose my presence will slow her down any?”

“I doubt it. Alas. She knows enough about Uryuom biology to know that Tulougol Seyunolu such as myself are frequently polyamorous.”

“As was demonstrated last night.”

“Indeed. And again this morning, most delightfully,” Grace said with a smile.

“If she’s really so totally not interested in men, to the point where Tedd could scare her off by being naked, maybe you should just assume a male form around her sometimes,” said Sarah. “Has she ever seen you male?”

Grace paused a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t think so. About the only time I shift to male for anything other than a brief moment is if Tedd wants a male lover.” She leaned over and gave Tedd a brief kiss. “Not that we’re having a lot of free time for sex, as the term wears on.”

“Yeah. This is the most sex we’ve had in weeks,” said Tedd.

Sarah scowled unsympathetically. “This is _my_ first time in almost two months,” she reminded them. “Well, last night was.”

Observing Sarah’s expression, Grace said, “I think we need to get some breakfast.” She glanced at the clock. “Brunch. Whatever.”

Sarah scrubbed her face with her hands and sighed. “Yah. Sorry. I has needs blood sugar.”

“Would you like a granola bar or apple?” Grace asked, pulling the snacks from a desk drawer.

Sarah snatched the granola bar with unseemly haste, and tore into it. “Sorry,” she mumbled around a mouth full, then swallowed. “Really need to eat more regularly.”

“We know, sweetie,” Grace reassured her.

“So, Indrani should be in the transformation lab by now,” Tedd said. “We should go hit her up for a favor.”

“After breakfast?” asked Sarah hopefully.

Grace gave her a kiss, and handed her the apple. “After breakfast,” she agreed.

* * *

“No,” said Indrani.

“I beg your pardon?” said Tedd incredulously.

Indrani glowered at him. “You heard me just fine. I said no.”

The three of them stood before Indrani, as she sat at her desk in the MAT transformation lab.

“But—why on Earth not?” spluttered Tedd.

Indrani sighed. “I’m not being arbitrary. She’s not a MAT student. She’s not even an MIT student. She hasn’t been approved by Dr. Kitamura for transformations. It could cost me my position here to transform her.”

“I’m not asking _you_ to transform her. I’ll do it. I just need access to the equipment.”

“That’s splitting hairs, and Dr. Kitamura isn’t fond of ‘letter of the law’ defenses. The answer is still no.”

“ _Drani—_ ” began Tedd, but Grace cut him off.

“Would Professor Kitamura authorize her, do you think?”

Indrani shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably. He likes Tedd, goddess knows why, and he’s willing to bend the rules to help a student out. But that kind of rule bending is a professor’s prerogative, not a grad student’s. I’d get my ass handed to me, at the very least.”

“Well, can we call him and ask for permission?” asked Grace.

Indrani grimaced. “No. He’s at his cabin in upstate New York, and he claims he has no cell phone reception there, nor a land line.”

“Claims?” asked Sarah curiously.

“The phone company coverage map shows he has coverage there. I suspect he just shuts off his phone to get away from us all.”

“No cell phone? Email? Texts? Is it even _legal_ for an MIT prof to be that completely off–line?” asked Tedd, only half-joking.

Indrani rolled her eyes. “Were it up to me, it wouldn’t be.”

“It’s not as if I’ve never been transformed before,” Sarah pointed out. “I’ve done it hundreds of times.”

“Hundreds. Really.” Indrani sounded skeptical.

Sarah scowled. “Yes, really.” She paused, and did a quick calculation in her head. “Probably… about two hundred, two hundred and fifty times. Or so.” She felt slightly startled even as she said that. She hadn’t been aware of just how often she’d been transformed in one way or another.

Indrani looked at Tedd, with an arched eyebrow. “Just what kind of games were you kids getting up to back home, that a muggle has been transformed over two hundred times?”

“I’m not a muggle,” Sarah protested. “I’m also a magic-user.” She paused, then conceded, “A fairly low-powered magic user, but still.”

“And well over half of those transformations were just quick sex-changes, to male and then back to female, for contraceptive purposes,” said Tedd.

Indrani grimaced. “Hmph. Well, either way, I can’t do it. Believe it or not, I’m not unsympathetic. I understand your problem, and I don’t like the idea of unplanned pregnancies. But not only is she not authorized, but there _are_ mundane solutions to your problem. Like Ella, or Plan B, or My Way. Or even getting an IUD implanted, or RU-486, if worse comes to worse.”

Sarah gave Indrani an quizzical look. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but why do you know so much about emergency contraception? I thought you were a lesbian. And not human.”

Indrani snorted. “You think you’re the first student to come to us for an EC transformation? I usually do these sort of quick sex-change transformations at least a couple of times a semester for you breeders. That’s not even counting the folks who come in on a regular basis to get their balls or ovaries temporarily disconnected for normal contraceptive purposes.”

Sarah glanced at Tedd. “Haven’t _you_ been transforming to your safe form lately?”

Tedd shook his head. “The problem is, when I transform to female, then back to male, the male form I revert to is my baseline normal. Not my safe form. So I’d be needing to come here to get transformed to my safe form several times a week. Grace and I have just been depending upon _her_ transforming to male on a regular basis for contraception.” He looked a bit abashed. “That’s part of why it didn’t occur to me last night, when you showed up—I had gotten out of the habit of thinking about it.”

“Oh.”

Indrani looked surprised. “I didn’t know you spent so much time female.” Her mouth quirked up in a slightly lecherous grin. “If you won’t cede Grace to me, maybe we could work out a sharing arrangement, as long as you’re willing to _stay_ female.”

Tedd and Grace sighed, practically in unison. Tedd said, “We already _have_ a group sharing arrangement, thank-you-very-much. And we’re _not_ auditioning for a fourth right now.”

“Right now? So there’s hope for me in the future?” said Indrani.

Sarah burst out laughing, causing the others to look at her. “Sorry, sorry,” she said. “But, really, are you _always_ this over-the-top?”

Indrani looked startled for a moment, then she grinned. “Yeah. Pretty much. Can’t get anywhere without trying.” She eyed Grace with a smile. “And you can’t argue that your girlfriend isn’t worth trying for.”

“Yeah, but there's also something to be said for taking ’no’ for an answer,” said Sarah, with a touch of asperity.

Indrani shrugged, still grinning and unrepentant. “Sure, but where's the fun in that?”

“Really? Is this your idea of fun?” asked Grace. Sarah and Indrani glanced at Grace, and Indrani did a hard double-take. Grace had shifted to a male form, and was several inches taller, and quite broad across the chest. The t-shirt Grace had been wearing was stretched quite thin, showing off his muscles quite nicely. Sarah was bemused to note that Grace had short cropped hair, not a choice Grace usually made when shifting to male, but perhaps he’d done so to emphasize the difference.

Indrani looked dismayed. “Oh, sweetie, _don’t_. That’s like painting a mustache on a Boticelli Venus.”

Grace shrugged. “This is me as much as the other form you’re used to. You know I’m Uryuom. My human female form is as much a mask as this is.”

Indrani sighed. “I know. I try not to think about it too much. It’s hard to picture you short, bald, and pastel colored.”

Tedd, Sarah and Grace all laughed. “Bald and pastel? Boy, have you got the wrong Uryuom,” said Tedd.

Indrani looked puzzled. “Then what _is_ your natural form?”

In response, Grace simply shifted to her natural form, losing a good eight inches of height in the process. She grabbed at her pants’ waistband to keep them from falling to the floor as her large bushy tail sprung up behind her. Indrani’s eyes went wide. She stared at Grace silently for a moment.

“I knew Tulougol Seyunolu could have animal parents, but…” she looked vaguely appalled as she contemplated Grace’s tail. “Seriously? One of your parents was a… a _squirrel?_ ”

“You say that as if it’s a bad thing,” said Sarah, frowning a little.

Indrani looked at her, scowling, then at Tedd, and shook her head. Her mouth set in a firm line, she spun around in her seat back to her desk. “Right. Well, in any event, there’s nothing I can do for you here. I suggest you hit up a pharmacy for some Plan B.”

The three of them stared at her back for a moment, then Grace reverted to human female form, and they left the transformation lab offices without further conversation.

* * *

As the three of them left the building, Sarah broke the silence with a tentative, “So… was that what inter-species prejudice looks like?”

Grace sighed, and stopped walking. Sarah looked at her, then immediately pulled her into a hug in reaction to Grace’s sad expression. Tedd joined the hug on the opposite side, making a Grace sandwich. They just stood in silence for a few moments, as Grace took a few deep breaths, then she stood up a little straighter. Sarah and Tedd released their holds, and stepped back, each still holding one of Grace’s hands.

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” said Sarah gently.

Grace smiled, a little sadly, and shook her head. “It’s all right.”

“No. It’s not,” said Tedd firmly. “It goes against several MAT precepts. She could get into serious trouble if she acts differently towards you just because of your species.”

Grace shook her head again. “But she didn’t. She said ‘no’ to us long before knowing who—what—I am.” She gave a sad little laugh. “It’s funny. I’ve encountered race prejudice before, for the color of my skin, but it never really bothered me, except in the abstract. My human skin color is purely voluntary. My choice. This is the first time someone has reacted like that to who I _really_ am.”

Sarah pulled Grace back into a hug, and Tedd did likewise. After a few more moments of hugging, Tedd sighed and said, “Well, maybe now she’ll stop trying to seduce you.”

“Maybe.” Grace didn’t sound very happy at the thought. “I didn’t want it to stop _this_ way. By scaring her off.”

They resumed their trip back to Grace’s dorm. As they walked, Sarah rubbed her abdomen and grumbled, “I wish I knew if we even _needed_ to do this. Not everyone gets pregnant right off the bat, even if they do have sex while ovulating.”

“Oh. Yeah,” said Tedd. He came to a halt on the sidewalk, and looked a little embarrassed.

Sarah stopped too and shot him a quizzical look. “Oh yeah what?”

“Well… this should have occurred to me before. We might not be able to transform you. But at least we can scan you, to see if, ah, anything has occurred.”

Sarah considered that for a moment, then shook her head. “Eh. No, not really. Even if I’m not pregnant _now_ , your little wrigglers can live inside me for up to five days. I could get pregnant next week, after I’m back at my school.”

“Oh. Right. I forgot that.” He shook his head. “That’s a weird thought.”

“Tell me about it,” Sarah sighed. They started walking again. “But that reminds me. How’s the work on your magical MRI scanner going?”

Tedd grimaced. “It’s… going.”

When he didn’t seem inclined to expand on it any more than that, Sarah looked to Grace. Grace shrugged. “He was to a certain extent re-inventing the wheel; other people had already done something similar. But because he developed it all on his own, he came up with a few novel approaches that other people hadn’t thought of. Dr. Khumalo said, when she saw what he’d done, that it was like seeing a Ferrari engine installed in a Model-T.”

Sarah laughed at the mental image. “So… you’re working on developing the Ferrari parts, and ditching the Model-T parts?”

“Something like that,” said Tedd. “That, and getting up to speed on prior art.”

“Well, having someone say that some of your work is like a Ferrari is a nice compliment,” said Sarah.

“That’s what _I_ told him,” said Grace. She bumped her hip into Tedd as they walked, knocking him to the side a little. “ _He_ chooses to focus on the Model-T comments.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “You know, the Model-T was considered a marvel of technology and engineering in its day. That’s not a _complete_ insult.”

Grace laughed. “She’s got you there.”

Tedd gave a small smile. “Thanks, sweeties.”

When they got back to Grace’s dorm, they peeled out of their winter coats and collapsed into a pile on her bed. They spent a few minutes kissing and snuggling, just enjoying being in each others’ presence, and cheering Grace up a bit.

After a few minutes, Grace sighed. “Well. Should we go make a run to the drugstore?”

They were silent for a few moments, contemplating that. “I wish we had access to your transformation watches,” said Sarah. Grace sat up, smiling.

“Well, then, we’ll just have to get a watch from Tedd’s lab back home.”

Tedd looked dubious. “Even ignoring the fact that it’s about a thousand miles away, I don’t know if I _have_ any male-form watches prepared and made back home.”

“But I do,” Sarah said. “The male form watch you made for me is in my room back home.” Then she frowned. “But I thought the watches only worked around Moperville because of the magic energy buildup there.”

Tedd nodded. “Yeah, but MAT was built here because this area also has an abnormally high level of magic energy. Not as extreme as Moperville, but it should eventually get the job done.” He paused, then added, “Mind you, it might have to pull on your innate magic energy hard enough to knock you out for a few minutes. But it’s better than nothing.”

“But that still leaves the issue of how to get a watch here. Unless you’ve developed a way to teleport?”

“Not me. However—”

Sarah perked up. “Oh! Nanase’s fairy dolls.” Then she slumped. “Oh, _bother_. _Nanase’s_ fairy dolls.” She covered her eyes and groaned. “We’re going to have to ask her for a favor. Related to our love life. Oh, _this_ is going to be fun.” Then she frowned, and shook her head. “Nanase can only send fairy dolls to places she’s been before. Has she visited you here at school?”

“No,” said Tedd, “But I know she visited Tufts when she was doing campus tours, which is just across town. We just need to find a secluded place she remembers well enough to send Little Nase.”

“Secluded could be problematic,” mused Grace. “College tours are pretty much all about public spaces.”

“Well, let’s ask her if she has any suggestions.”

* * *

The phone call to Nanase proved significantly less embarrassing than Sarah had feared. Nanase was totally sympathetic to their problem, and didn’t even make any snarky remarks. And she had a suggestion for a closer rendezvous place.

“The whole family came along for that campus tour, and we spent an extra couple of days in Boston doing tourist things. There’s a Barnes & Noble on the south side of the Boston Common where I used the restrooms. I’m pretty sure I could send a fairy doll there.”

“The restrooms?”

“Well, it’s private. Ish.”

“Okay. Well, first off, can you even get the watch?”

“Sure. You’re giving me permission to go into your room at home?”

Sarah blushed a little. Nanase had become a bit of a stickler for permissions when visiting homes not her own. “Yes, of course. Please. It should be in my underwear drawer, the second drawer down in the dresser, on the left. I wrote an ‘M’ on the underside of the watch in Sharpie, to differentiate it from my female variations watch.”

“Okay. Hang on a minute.” There followed a pause of almost two minutes, then Nanase said, “Got it. Piece of cake.”

Sarah sighed a little in relief. “No one saw you?”

“Nope. Your room door was open, but the only movement I heard in the house was from downstairs.”

“OK. Step one done.”

“If we catch the Red Line across the river, we can be at the Common in under a half hour or so,” Grace said.

“OK. Call you from the restrooms in a bit?”

“I look forward to it,” said Nanase drily.

* * *

Tedd had a paper he needed to work on, so Grace and Sarah headed across the river without him. “Text me when you get back to the room, and I’ll come back from the library to help,” he said.

As they headed out, Sarah sighed. “I hadn’t imagined a romantic weekend with you guys would turn into a day-long quest to provide me with emergency contraception.”

Grace nodded sympathetically. “It’s a pain, but it’s got to be done. At least we get to spend some time together.”

“We should probably stop at a drugstore on the way back, and pick up some condoms,” said Sarah. “And… maybe some Plan B. Just in case the watch doesn’t work here.”

Sarah enjoyed the walk through campus to the subway station. It was a sunny fall day. They walked hand-in-hand, with Grace pointing out the various buildings on campus where she or Tedd had classes, or other activities.

“Juggling? Seriously?” Sarah was bemused at the notion of Grace in the Juggling Club.

“Well, it’s not just juggling. We also do poi, devil sticks, diablo, and so on.”

“Aren’t your reflexes fast enough to make juggling trivial?”

“Not really. My reflexes _are_ better than normal, but getting the patterns and routines down is tricksy. Especially if I’m working with a partner, which is the most fun.”

Sarah was also pleased at how many people waved to Grace, or called her name, as they passed. It seemed like they couldn’t go fifty feet without passing someone who knew her.

“Seems like you’ve settled in pretty well here,” Sarah observed, after Grace got stopped for a bear-hug by a five foot tall person of indeterminate gender, introduced as Chris.

“Well, we’re all nerds here. Even the students who aren’t in MAT feel a bit like family.”

“How many MAT students are there?”

“We’re a tiny department. Less than seventy-five undergrads, about two dozen Masters students, and sixty or so PhD students.”

“Wow. So, how many of you are, ah,” Sarah glanced around to make sure no one was in earshot, “Non-human?”

“Well, if you include part-human aliens like myself, eighteen students, at last count. Just over double that number of professors and adjuncts.”

“And all the other humans are magic users?”

“About half. The rest are working with alien tech.”

“Hunh. Departmental parties must be strange.”

Grace chuckled. “One of the nicer things, but also one of the harder things to get used to, is having a whole bunch of people who we can talk to openly about these things. For so long it’s just been our small circle of friends back home.”

“Not _that_ small a circle, really,” said Sarah. “I think it was driving Edward to distraction, how big it was growing.”

“True. It’s just as well we left when we did, before it encompassed all of Moperville.”

Sarah chuckled.

Boston Common was a lovely and fascinating place, even in late fall, with the trees all bare of leaves. Sarah had to remind herself that they were on a mission, and Nanase was waiting for them. They found the book store easily enough, then made their way to the restroom. Once there, they had to loiter a few minutes, waiting for a mother and child to finish up and leave.

Once they were alone, Grace jammed a doorstop that had been tucked behind the door under the door, blocking it closed, then leaned against it for good measure. Sarah looked at her, surprised.

“We don’t want to risk anyone walking in and seeing Little Nase,” Grace said.

“Ah. Right.” Sarah pulled out her phone and called Nanase. “We’re in,” she said when Nanase answered.

“Okay. Just a moment.” There was a soft _pop_ of displaced air, and Little Nase appeared in the air above the sinks, holding a watch. It flew over to Grace and Sarah by the door. “Here you go. Hope Tedd is right, and it works for you outside of Moperville,” said Nanase, as she dropped the watch into Sarah’s outstretched hands.

“Thank you, Nanase. You’re a life saver,” said Sarah.

“No problem,” said the fairy doll copy of their friend.

“You want to leave this doll here with us, and we can take it back to our dorm?” asked Grace.

Nanase hesitated a moment, then nodded. “Sure. It would be nice to have a way to visit you a little more conveniently.”

There was a rattle at the door, of someone trying to get in. Nanase landed on Grace’s hand, then said, “I think that’s my cue to go. Talk to you later.”

“Bye. And again, thanks,” said Sarah.

The little fairy doll went stiff and plastic in Grace’s hand, and she tucked it into her backpack, then bent to remove the wedge from the door.

An older woman glowered at them suspiciously as she entered the restroom, but Grace just smiled sunnily at her as they walked out.

“Come on, sweetie. Let’s take the scenic route back to the dorm,” said Grace.

* * *

After all the hassle of spending half the day tracking down a way to transform, the actual act was somewhat anti-climactic.

Since she hadn’t brought any larger clothes with her, Sarah stripped before laying down on Grace’s bed and activating the watch. As Tedd had predicted, the transformation pulled on her innate magical resources hard enough to knock her out. Sarah slowly returned to consciousness, to see Tedd and Grace staring back down anxiously.

“Welcome back,” said Grace.

“Did it work?” Sarah asked, then heard the answer in the lower-pitched timber of his voice. He ran a reflexive hand down the front of his torso, confirming the change of form. “Ah. Yeah.” Sarah sat up, and shook his head, feeling a little fuzzy. “How long was I out?” he asked.

“Almost half an hour,” said Grace.

“A little longer than I’d expected, but not long enough to get us _totally_ panicked,” said Tedd. Sarah glanced at him, and the look of relief on Tedd’s face betrayed just how concerned he’d actually been. Sarah gave Tedd a reassuring hug, and a quick kiss.

“Returning to my natural form shouldn’t be as hard, though, right?” asked Sarah.

Tedd and Grace both nodded. “The bulk of the magical energy investment is up front, in the initial transformation,” said Tedd. “Reversion to natural form takes comparatively little, and the ambient magic around here should be sufficient to cover it.”

“Cool.” Sarah stood up, and stretched, and enjoyed the view from six inches higher than normal. Grace smiled up at him, and Sarah was suddenly aware that her face was at his waist level, _and_ it had been many months since the last time he’d played with his lovers while male. It wasn’t Sarah’s main sexual interest, but it _did_ make for a fun change of pace now and then. “So. You want I should change back immediately, or…?” he trailed off suggestively with a smile. Tedd and Grace both smiled back, and Sarah felt a pleasant flush of sexual energy at their knowing smiles.

But before Sarah could make a move closer to either lover, there was a series of sharp loud raps on the door. Grace and Tedd exchanged a startled glance, and Sarah recalled that Indrani had knocked in a similar fashion the night before. Tedd glanced at Sarah’s naked form, and gestured for him to stand behind the door where he wouldn’t be visible from the hallway as he opened the door.

“What do you wa…” Tedd’s voice trailed off as he answered the door. “Huh.” He bent over to pick something up from the floor, then closed the door.

“Wasn’t she there?” asked Sarah, glancing curiously at the small brown paper bag in Tedd’s hands. It was lunch bag size, its top rolled down, and stuffed full of something.

“No, her room door was closing just as I opened our door,” said Tedd absently. He peered curiously at the side of the bag. “I’m pretty sure that’s Uryuomoco, but this calligraphy is so ornate I can’t read it. Grace?” He passed the bag to her.

Grace studied the flowing script writing on the side of the bag for a few moments. “It just says, ‘Sorry’.” She unrolled the top of the bag, peered inside it, and started laughing quietly. “So much for scaring her off.”

“What?” asked Sarah curiously.

Grace reached inside the bag and pulled out an acorn.

Sarah laughed. “I guess she’s still nuts about you.”

Tedd and Grace both groaned. “Seriously? I thought bad puns were _my_ job,” complained Tedd. Grace pulled a few more acorns out, and shook her head bemusedly.

“Some of these are still muddy. She must have raided every squirrel hoard in the quad to get all these.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll be kind enough to share them back out with your furry friends later,” said Tedd with a smile. “It’s nice to know she realized how… inappropriate she sounded.”

“Yeah. Be nicer if she had the ovaries to say ‘Sorry’ to your face, though,” said Sarah.

Grace shrugged. “I’ll take whatever she’s comfortable giving. And at least her apology comes in the form of something yummy.”

Sarah and Tedd laughed. “Yummy?” said Sarah skeptically.

“Yummy,” said Grace firmly.

“Hm. The only yummy things I’m seeing here are _you_ guys,” said Sarah. He wrapped an arm around each of their shoulders, and pulled them in close. Grace stretched out a hand to set the bag of acorns down on the desk while Sarah and Tedd exchanged a long kiss.

Sarah and Tedd broke apart, both breathing a little heavily. Sarah grinned, and said, “I think this is the first time I’ve ever been undressed before Grace.”

“Keep her busy a second,” said Tedd. Sarah was glad to oblige, kissing Grace and running his hands up and down the length of her back, scratching lightly, as Tedd disrobed behind them. “There. A double first,” said Tedd, naked and laughing, as he hugged Sarah and Grace.

Sarah looked down as Tedd’s hardening cock rubbed up against his thigh, and he was reminded that Grace had based his form’s ‘perfect penis proportions’ on Tedd: the two cocks were visually identical, except for the trim patches of purple or blonde pubic hair up top. Grace glanced down too, and smiled a slow sultry smile that burned with promising heat.

“That _is_ more yummy than a bag of acorns,” she conceded, and she lowered herself gracefully (how else) to her knees in front of her lovers. She grabbed both of their cocks, and pulled them closer to her face. Sarah, so used to Grace’s habit of getting naked at the first available opportunity, was surprised at how erotic it was to see her fully clothed for a change in a sexual context. Her face tilted up to watch Sarah and Tedd’s faces, she slowly licked the head of first one, then the other cock. Sarah shuddered, and Tedd moaned softly.

Then came a couple of sharp raps on the door.

“You have _got_ to be shitting me,” muttered Tedd. Grace started to rise, and Tedd put a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Please don’t answer that.”

“But what if she’s worked up the ‘ovaries’ to apologize to my face?” asked Grace quietly. “I don’t want her to feel like I don’t appreciate her apology.” She shrugged off Tedd’s hand and rose.

Sarah groaned. “Sweetie, you are _far_ too nice a person.”

Grace shot him a wicked grin. “But not so nice that I’ll invite her in,” she said reassuringly. She gestured the two naked men towards the back of the door, where Sarah had lurked just a few minutes ago, and then she opened the door. “Hi, Drani.”

“Uh. Hi, Grace. I just wanted to say, sorry for the way I reacted at the lab.” Sarah and Tedd wrapped their arms around each other for warmth, in the sudden cool draft coming from the hallway.

“Thank you for the apology. And the acorns. They were both lovely.”

“Were they?” Indrani sounded relieved. “Oh, good. After I left them there, it suddenly occurred to me that you might think I was making fun of you.”

“No. Not at all. Acorns are a tasty treat, despite what some heathens might say.” Tedd snickered.

“Uh. Are Tedd and Sarah here? I wanted to apologize to them too.”

“Yes, but they’re… indisposed.” Grace glanced behind the door and made brief eye contact with Sarah, who rolled his eyes, grinning.

“Indisposed?”

“Ah…” Grace hesitated.

“We’re _fucking!_ ” said Tedd, with some exasperation. Sarah heard a startled gasp from the other side of the door.

“Oh! Ah, well, sorry, won’t keep you, sorry again, bye,” babbled Indrani, and Sarah heard her fleeing back to her room.

Grace closed the door, looked at Tedd and Sarah, then all three of them burst out laughing.

“ _Please_ don’t answer the door any more?” Sarah begged, between laughs.

The three of them collapsed together onto the bed. Sarah was unsurprised that Grace had somehow managed to undress in the three steps between the door and the bed.

“So. We’ve had some wonderful if worrying sex, visited the transformation labs, gotten a mildly embarrassing favor from Nanase, seen the Common, shocked your obnoxious neighbor and then gotten an apology for the same, and saved me from getting pregnant,” said Sarah after the laughter died down.

“Your point being?” asked Grace, as she leaned over to nibble on the back of Tedd’s neck. Tedd sucked air through clenched teeth, and Sarah ran a hand across his chest, gently playing with his nipples.

“Just… what are we going to do tomorrow for an encore?” asked Sarah.

Grace chuckled. “ _Tomorrow_? The afternoon is still young.”

“Let’s see if we can add a few more interesting items to your list before dinner time,” said Tedd.

And they did.


	9. Spring Break

“Wow”

“Yeah.”

“Just… _Wow_.”

“You said that already.”

“Look at the _size_ of that…”

“Okay. I guess in some cases, size really _does_ matter.”

“Hah. And you accuse _me_ of being a size queen.”

“That’s amazing. Just amazing. I’d seen pictures, but that doesn’t prepare you for the real thing.”

“Can you imagine having the courage to ride that thing?”

“I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

“Really?”

“Hey, if it gets me to the moon…”

Sarah, Tedd, and Grace stood looking up at the first stage launch engines of the Saturn V rocket on display at the Kennedy Space Center. After two years of spending their university spring breaks at home in Moperville, they were finally doing a spring break in Florida. They had not expected to be able to afford such a trip on their own, but then Tedd's father, Edward, in an unexpected act of largesse, had footed the bill for their flights and hotel room.

This being Tedd and Grace and Sarah, their itinerary was less inclined towards the traditional spring break keggers and wet t-shirt contests at Miami Beach, and more inclined towards the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and touring the Kennedy Space Center.

“It weighs over two million kilos empty, it generated over thirty-three thousand kilonewtons of thrust, and was used for less than three minutes at launch,” Sarah rattled off.

Tedd looked at her, impressed. “How do you know all that?”

“Hey, you’re not the only nerd around here.” She grinned. “Also, it’s written on that display over there.”

“Three minutes? That’s all?” Grace asked.

“Yup. Then it was thrown away. Single-use one shot.”

“Jeez.”

“I wonder what William, or other Uryuoms, would make of this?” mused Tedd.

“Ozsaco no, iea cui Uryuoms?” said a voice behind them. _Excuse me, did you say Uryuoms?_ translated Sarah automatically. She still found it unbelievably strange that she had acquired knowledge of an alien language in an instant, given to her by the Uryuom Lavender. She took a breath to steady herself as she turned towards the speaker. _Keep it cool, Sarah_ , she reminded herself.

“Ioc?…” _Yes?_ said Tedd warily, as he turned around to see a young man standing behind them.

He looked normal—almost excessively so, now that Sarah bothered to take a good look at him. He’d been part of their tour group for the past hour or so. He was only a little taller than Sarah, and he looked like an almost stereotypical tourist—tanned Caucasian, in his early twenties, short brown hair, brown eyes, medium build, wearing cargo shorts, sandals, and a green t-shirt with a greyhound logo on it, emblazoned ENMU. He had a small camera bag slung across one shoulder, though he had no camera out. Sarah felt like she’d passed by hundreds of young men who looked like him in the three days since they’d arrived in Florida.

“Ah. That explains…” The stranger stopped, and shook his head. “Sorry, I’m being rude. My name is Bond. James Bond,” he said deadpan, then he grinned. “Call me Jimmy, to avoid confusion.”

“I’m Tedd.”

“Sarah.”

“I’m Grace. That explains what?” asked Grace.

Jimmy glanced around, then lowered his voice a little and said, “I sensed the presence of a Seyunolu in your group, and was surprised.” He inclined his head slightly towards Grace. “I thought I knew all of my _special_ classmates who’d left campus for spring break.”

Sarah finally realized what his shirt logo meant: _Eastern New Mexico University_. The only other university besides MIT to have magical and alien technologies courses of study. She wondered if he also had an MIT t-shirt tucked away in his camera bag.

“No, we’re from MIT. MAT,” Grace said.

“Ah. Yes, of course,” Jimmy said. “Go, Tech, Go!” He delivered the MIT cheer with disconcerting enthusiasm.

“So, you’re at ENMU?” asked Grace cheerfully.

“Yup. Here for spring break. None of my friends wanted to do the NASA thing, so I’m on my own today.”

“Enjoying the ‘primitive’ spacecraft?” asked Tedd.

Jimmy nodded. “Yeah. It’s quite amazing, what these people managed to do.” He glanced up at the engines towering over them. “Even if it isn’t the most efficient way to get into space, the scale of it is quite impressive.”

“Yeah,” agreed Tedd.

Jimmy continued looking up at the huge engines over their heads for a few moments, then he looked back at the triad. "Um, do you mind if I tag along with you guys for a while?"

“Of course not,” said Grace. “We’re all on the same tour, we might as well hang out a together, at least until the tour ends.”

Jimmy grinned. “Thanks. That’d be great. It’d be nice to be able to talk about things here with someone who understands.” He glanced at Tedd and Sarah, then asked Grace, “Are these your nugoc?”

Sarah translated the word as approximately meaning _mates_ , but there were a multitude of overtones to the word that didn’t quite translate that simply. Connotations of a group of lovers, business and genetic partners, and other social relationships that didn’t have easy human analogues.

Grace hesitated a moment, before answering, “Approximately. Yes.”

Since Tedd didn’t know that Sarah had recently acquired the ability to understand Uryuomoco, she shot Grace an inquiring look. “We’re your what, now?”

“My… partners? Heart-friends? Lovers? I’m not sure exactly how to translate it,” Grace said apologetically.

“That’s a good first approximation,” said Tedd. “And, yes, we are,” he said to Jimmy.

“Cool. It’s not often that I meet hu—people flexible enough to join a keri relationship.”

“Well, that’s us, flexible all over,” Grace burbled. “Come on, let’s go see what the next stage of this monster rocket looks like.” She practically skipped along the length of the first stage, stretched out on its side like a fallen giant, to where the next stage lay. Tedd shot Sarah a bemused look and they followed along, Jimmy in tow.

Jimmy proved to be good company, as they wandered the length of the 363 foot long rocket, lain on its side in display. He seemed to know almost as much about the Apollo space program as Tedd did. Sarah was bemused to watch the two guys get into a nerd battle, each trying to one-up the other with the most obscure trivia facts about the giant rocket they were viewing. For a moment she wondered if they’d found the right Uryuom, but she decided to follow Grace’s lead; surely she would have known if there were a third Uryuom in the tour group.

They eventually came to the end of the long exhibition hall, past the tip of the Command/Service Module and the escape tower, to where there were a few smaller side exhibition rooms. Here at the far end of the long building, the crowd of tourists was a lot thinner, and as they entered one of the rooms, they found they had the space to themselves.

At the far end of the room here were several traditional touristy photo-op cut-outs of space-suited astronauts, with holes in the face plates where people could stand behind and poke their faces out to get their pictures taken.

Jimmy went around behind the figures and tucked his head into the circular cut-out. “Hey, how about this?” he said. His face shifted, quickly turning vivid green and sprouting typical Uryuom antennae. Sarah gasped, and Tedd’s eyes went wide at the sight.

“Jimmy!” hissed Grace. “You shouldn’t do that in public!”

Jimmy grinned and reverted to a human form. “No one else is in here right now,” he said. “No harm, no foul.”

“What about security cameras?” asked Tedd nervously.

Jimmy pointed to the ceiling across the room. “The only security camera in this room is over by the entrance door. I checked. We’re so far away that I doubt anything showed up, aside from a few green pixels. Which no one would ever bother looking for anyway.”

“Hmm.” Tedd scanned the room’s ceiling, but it appeared to Sarah that Jimmy was right.

Jimmy turned back to Grace and grinned. “You should try it.”

Grace looked around nervously, “I wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh, come on, don’t you think it’s funny? Bug-eyed-monsters in an Apollo space suit?”

“We _never_ transform in public! It’s against all the rules!”

Jimmy rolled his eyes. “It’s against the rules to have a little fun?”

“What if someone walks in?”

“They wouldn’t be looking down at this end of the hall right away. You can duck down and morph back.”

“I dunno…” Grace looked like she was considering the notion.

“ _Grace_ …” said Tedd warningly. Sarah put a hand on his arm and squeezed. He looked at her, startled. She smiled.

“Don’t you think it would make a cute picture?”

“Yeah, sure, if I ever needed to give my father apoplexy.”

Sarah winced a little, not wanting to bring Edward into this conversation. “So we won’t show him. I think it would make a fun souvenir.”

“Come on,” wheedled Jimmy. “Don’t you ever get tired of always following the rules?”

Tedd looked dubious, but Grace laughed. “You’re so wicked!” she said admiringly. Tedd’s eyes went a little wide at that response.

“Grace…” Tedd began again, but Sarah pulled out her phone.

“Come on, Tedd, we’ll just get a quick picture, then we’ll be done. You can watch the door to make sure no one comes in, if it makes you feel better.”

Tedd shot her a confused look, but then he shook his head in resignation. “All right, let’s get this over with before someone else comes in.”

Grace ducked behind the cut-out figures, and shoved her face through the hole. “All clear?” she asked Tedd cheerfully.

“Yeah, all clear,” he said.

Grace copied Jimmy’s transformation, changing her skin color to green, and sprouting antennae. Sarah shot a quick picture with her phone, as did Jimmy. Grace made a few funny expressions, and they both shot some more.

“That’s enough, Grace,” said Tedd nervously.

“Spoil-sport,” said Grace, but she shifted back to her human form, and stepped out from around the cut-outs.

Jimmy’s expression had shifted from happy-go-lucky to an unpleasant smirk. “That was very naughty of you, Grace.”

She laughed, “Yeah. I don’t know what came over me.”

“Me neither,” muttered Tedd.

“If the wrong people found out what you’d done, you could be in big trouble.”

“Hey, no one else was here. Like you said, no harm, no foul,” protested Sarah.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t matter. We're still not supposed to transform while in public spaces. Personally, I think the penalties for that are a little draconian, but, hey, it works to my advantage.”

“Your advantage?”

Jimmy held up his phone. “What am I bid for all the copies of the photos I just took?”

“Hey, what, you’re going to rat me out?” asked Grace indignantly.

“Mmm. Unless we can come to some… understanding.” He gave her a nasty grin.

Grace, Sarah, and Tedd all stared at Jimmy, displaying varying degrees of dismay and anger.

“What _kind_ of understanding?” asked Sarah, glaring at the duplicitous Uryuom. “You frakking pervert.”

Jimmy smirked. “No, nothing unsavory. Merely remunerative.”

“Money?” said Tedd incredulously. “This is all just a shake-down for money?”

“Hey, a being has to eat. And you rich college kids can afford a few hundred bucks.”

Sarah was startled to hear a soft growling noise coming from Grace. She was glowering at Jimmy with a dangerous look on her face. The fact that he continued to look smug, not nervous, in the face of this, lowered Sarah’s estimation of his intelligence by a dozen I.Q. points.

“So, what’s the deal. We give you money, you delete your pictures?” asked Sarah.

Jimmy nodded. “It’s a simple enough arrangement. As a gesture of good will, I’ll even let you do the deleting, to make sure it’s done.”

 _Right, like you didn’t automatically make a backup to the cloud,_ thought Sarah. She glanced at Grace. “Do you think we’re done here?”

Grace nodded, suddenly smiling a sharp little smile that had a lot of teeth. “I think so. Edward? Do you agree?”

“Indeed,” came the voice of Tedd’s father, as he entered the room through a service door, with two other agents trailing behind him.

“ _Dad?”_ exclaimed Tedd, looking thoroughly confused.

Jimmy’s eyes went wide, then he spun as if to make a break for the entrance, only to see two more agents standing by the door. He hesitated for only a fraction of a second, before apparently deciding that two were better odds than three, and he continued towards the entrance, his form blurring and shifting even as he ran. His clothing fell to the floor in a pile, and a small furry figure ran out the neck of the shirt, darting between the agents’ legs. They yelped and grabbed at him, but he easily eluded their grasps, zigging and zagging as he went.

“ _No,”_ snapped Grace, and she took off after him, her form also blurring as she went.

“Grace, no!” shouted Edward, but she ignored him.

Grace also shifted small enough to jump out of her clothes, and for a moment her familiar squirrel form sprinted across the room. Then she leapt into the air, and suddenly a beautiful red-tailed hawk was zooming across the room and out the door, in hot pursuit.

“Oh, _shit_ ,” breathed Edward, then he ran for the door, Tedd and Sarah and the other two agents trailing behind.

They piled out the entrance door to the main exhibit hall, only to stumble to a halt, as various tourists cried out in surprise at the large raptor now soaring overhead, ducking and weaving around the various stages of the Saturn V. Grace tracked Jimmy relentlessly across the floor, screeching a nerve-wracking cry that sent shivers down Sarah’s spine. _Yup, that’s my girlfriend,_ she thought, a little giddily.

Sarah held her breath, watching the two of them, wondering if Jimmy would break all Uryuom law and custom, and shift into some other form in front of all these tourists. For the moment, it merely looked like a hawk had somehow chased its lunch into the exhibition hall. If he decided to shift to some other form while in plain view, all bets were off. Sarah suddenly empathized with Edward’s swearing. She knew from talking with him that the government had plans to announce the existence of aliens on Earth _sometime_ within her lifetime, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to happen this decade. Or even the next.

Either the Uryuom social conditioning against shape-shifting in view of humans was ingrained so deeply that it kept Jimmy from changing forms, or else Grace’s hot pursuit kept him from being able to concentrate enough to do so. People yelped in surprise at the little creature scurrying across their feet. _Heh. It looks like he’s a weasel,_ Sarah realized. Then the tourists squawked even louder at the hawk that zoomed just barely over their heads in pursuit.

Jimmy scurried and scrambled, jinking and changing directions as he fled across the floor, apparently trying for the exit door half-way down the hall. Grace seemed to be aware of his goal; whenever he veered that direction, she was there before him, making him dodge and scramble back away from the exit.

Sarah lost sight of Jimmy behind the Command/Service Module, but Grace dove down, and a moment later, she flew back up over the top of the CSM, a long furry body clasped in her talons. She swooped across the hall, causing more startled cries from the tourists. She headed back into the smaller exhibition room where they had just been. Edward and his fellow agents quickly secured the door, as Grace settled down on the floor near the pile of her clothes.

Sarah wondered why Jimmy hadn’t shifted to a larger form to escape Grace’s grasp, but then she saw that Grace had her talons wrapped tight around his neck. If his neck grew in size inside that grasp, he stood a good chance of having his throat ripped out. He lay there, gasping for breath, a little wheezy under Grace’s tight grip. His beady little eyes glared at the rest of them as they approached. He squirmed a little in Grace’s grasp, but he subsided when a few droplets of blood appeared on his fur under her talons.

One of the agents pulled what looked like a couple of strips of silver ribbon out of her pocket, and knelt beside Grace and Jimmy. She quickly wrapped one ribbon around his fore legs, and the other around his hind legs. She said to Grace, “You can release him now. This is a nelkfot binding; it will adjust to whatever form he takes.”

Grace cautiously released Jimmy, and hopped back, flapping her wings for balance. Jimmy immediately shifted to a human form, but the agent’s assurances proved correct. The silvery ribbon adjusted to his form, keeping his hands and feet bound tight together. He glared at Sarah and Tedd, but didn’t say anything.

Grace shifted back to her human form. Sarah glanced around, but none of the agents seemed to notice her nudity any more than they did Jimmy’s. Either they were all Uryuoms themselves, or else were so used to working with the shapeshifting aliens that sudden random nudity was no cause for comment. Only Edward looked away, blushing slightly. Grace glanced at Edward, then started dressing.

Sarah and Tedd went to Grace and helped her dress, handing her her clothes. They both hugged her once she was done.

“That was amazing, sweetie,” said Sarah admiringly. She gave Grace a kiss. “You were fantastic.”

“And quite the beautiful hawk,” said Tedd with a smile.

Edward approached them, one eye on Jimmy as the other agents worked to pull some clothing onto him without losing control of him. They seemed well versed in dealing with shape shifters, keeping him in check with those silvery bands.

“Ladies, thank you for your help. I’d appreciate it if you’d wait here for a little bit so we can debrief.” Edward turned away without waiting for a response, and went over to the agents who were wrestling Jimmy to his feet.

“Wait, what?” Tedd looked at Sarah and Grace, a confused expression growing on his face. “Help? _Debrief?_ Were you… involved in this?”

“Yes.” Sarah took a deep breath. She had been dreading this moment ever since agreeing to this operation. “We’re part of a sting to catch this guy. He’s been preying on alien tourists around here for over a year. His offer to delete his pictures was a lie; he continued to blackmail his victims long after they left here.”

“‘We’re part of a sting’? What do you mean, _we_?”

“Sarah and me,” said Grace.

Tedd stared at them for a moment, his confused expression slowly fading away, to be replaced with a totally expressionless face. One advantage to dating a genius, Sarah reflected bleakly, was that you rarely had to explain things in detail to him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked quietly.

Sarah exchanged an unhappy look with Grace. “We wanted to, but Edward asked us not to,” said Grace.

Tedd frowned a little, which was actually an improvement over his blank, emotionless face. “Dad? But—why?”

Sarah sighed. “Because, bluntly put, sweetie—you’re a lousy actor. He—and we—were afraid you wouldn’t be able to act naturally around Jimmy. That you’d blow the operation, tip him off that this was a sting.”

Tedd stared at them for a moment, then turned away and stalked over to a bench. He sat down, and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he rubbed his face in his hands.

Sarah looked at Grace, and whispered, in a dismayed voice so quiet only Grace would hear, “What do we do now?” Grace, looking on the verge of tears herself, just shrugged helplessly. They stared at Tedd as he sat, head in hands, for several long moments.

Eventually, Tedd looked up, and made eye contact with Sarah and Grace, looking sad. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. His face smoothed out, and his shoulders dropped a little. Opening his eyes, he sat up straighter, and patted the bench to either side of him, invitingly.

Sarah and Grace slowly walked over, and cautiously sat down flanking him. He took their hands in his, and held them on his lap. He squeezed their hands tight for a moment, then loosened his grip. He sat staring ahead at the ground, not looking to either side of him. When he spoke, it was in a quiet, calm voice.

“First off, I love you, and nothing changes that.” Sarah wondered how a simple declaration of love could be at once both so relieving and also so heartbreaking.

“Secondly, I understand why you did what you did. I know I’m a lousy actor. I get that.” He paused, and took a deep breath.

“That doesn’t alter the fact that I feel incredibly hurt and betrayed right now. One of the basic foundations of our relationship is communication. You hid this from me.” He let go of their hands for a moment to wipe at his eyes, then he took their hands in his again.

“I’m mad at you. But I’m _furious_ with my father right now, for putting you— _us_ —in this position. I’m sure he had some incredibly reasonable and noble sounding arguments that he used to persuade you to do this. Probably with charts. But the fact is, we could have set this up in a way that didn’t involve me, or require my lousy acting abilities. You could have come to NASA alone today. Or I could have been in the tour group separate from you, never interacting with Jimmy when he approached you. Instead, he chose to ask you two to violate a core part of our relationship.”

Sarah sniffed, and wiped at her eyes with her free hand as she sat there and listened to Tedd. She had no response for him. All of her previous rationalizations and justifications for doing what they did seemed empty, hollow, not worth her breath to try and offer them up to Tedd.

“I’m sorry,” came Edward’s voice from behind them. Sarah jumped a little at the unexpected intrusion into their private little bubble of emotional turmoil. She looked up to see Edward walk around to the front of the bench, and stand in front of Tedd.

Tedd looked up, then stood up, releasing his hold on Grace and Sarah’s hands. He stood face to face with his father, their faces inches apart. Sarah watched as the expression on his face grew slowly more and more angry, jaw clenched, his fists so tight that his hands shook. She was suddenly afraid that she was about to see Tedd strike his father, but when he spoke, his voice was incongruously quiet and flat.

“Did you get what you needed?”

Edward frowned a little, then nodded. “Yes.”

“Good.” Tedd opened his fists, spread his fingers wide for a moment, then he turned sharply around, turning his back on Edward. He looked at Sarah and Grace, and held his hands out to them. “Loves?”

Sarah took his hand and stood up, as did Grace. Tedd started to walk away, and they went with them.

“Tedd—” called Edward as they walked away.

“No. We’re done here,” said Tedd, not breaking stride or turning around to address his father.

“Tedd, I’m sorry,” called Edward, but Tedd didn’t respond.

They came to the entrance door, with an agent standing guard in front of it. Tedd glared at him. “Let us out, please.”

The agent shook his head and said, “Sorry, we need to finish the debrief first.”

“Do I _look_ like I give a shit about the debrief?” asked Tedd. Sarah flinched a little at his tone.

“Let them go, Rundall,” called Edward. “I’ll debrief my civilian consultants later.”

Rundall glanced at Edward, then at another agent, before shrugging and stepping aside, pushing the door open for them. “Thanks for the assist,” he said quietly to Grace as they passed. “Well done.”

She nodded and gave him a brief smile. “You’re welcome.”

They walked together silently, hand in hand in hand, down the hall to the exit, and found their way to where the tour shuttle bus was waiting.

“We’re not heading back for another fifteen minutes,” said the bus driver as they boarded the bus. “You sure you don’t want to see more, or wait out in the sun?”

Sarah shook her head as Tedd and Grace climbed into the empty bus. “Thanks, we just want to sit for a while. It’s… been a long day.”

“Suit yourself.”

They headed for the very back of the bus, where a bench across the back provided the only place where three people could sit together. The chill of the overly air conditioned bus made Sarah shiver a little.

They sat with Tedd in the middle again, and he leaned forward to bury his face in his hands again. Grace tentatively placed an arm across his shoulders, and when he didn’t reject her touch, Sarah did likewise.

After a minute, Tedd asked, his voice muffled by his hands, “Is he coming after us?”

Sarah glanced out the tinted windows, but saw none of the agents anywhere nearby. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Good.” Tedd sat up, and to Sarah’s amazement, he smiled at her and Grace. It almost looked like a normal smile, with just a little bit of an edge to it. “Think he bought it?”

“Bought it?” asked Sarah blankly.

“The ‘almost mad enough to punch you’ act,” said Tedd, looking a little pleased with himself.

“ _Tedd…”_ Grace began, then trailed off, staring at him with slowly dawning comprehension.

“Can’t act, my ass,” Tedd snorted.

“What?” Sarah stared at him, confused.

Tedd leaned over and gave her a kiss, then he gave Grace a kiss too. “Sorry, loves. I’m a little hurt, yes, but nowhere near as much as I made out to be. It just seemed like the best way to keep Dad from ever trying to rope you into something like this ever again was to make it seem like I was about to explode.”

“Wait, what, that was an _act?_ ” asked Sarah. “You were _acting? You?”_

Tedd grinned. “I guess I just needed the proper motivation.” His grin faded away, and he looked at them, his expression more serious. “I did mean what I said about honest communication being a core value to this relationship, however.” He picked up their hands, held them together in front of his mouth, and kissed their knuckles. “I also meant it when I said that I love you, and nothing will change that.”

“You knew he was behind us, listening?” asked Sarah, still trying to figure out what had just happened.

“I saw him looking at us as I walked over to the bench. I figured he’d want to hear what we were talking about. Once I realized that he’d recruited you for this, everything fell into place, all the little odd behaviors and things you two have been doing the last few days.” He sighed. “I know my father. If he isn’t cut off at the pass, the reward for this job well done would be another job. And another, and another, and _another_ , until he’d roped you into working for him full time, for real.” He shook his head. “Which, honestly, I have no interest in doing, and I don’t think you do, either.”

“Um. Well, actually…” began Grace. Sarah was startled, and Tedd looked like he was too.

“Really?”

Grace shrugged, looking a little awkward. “I’m not sure. But I wouldn’t rule it out. He _does_ do important work, helping people. I like helping people.” She paused, then added, “I really liked capturing that slimy little blackmailer.”

“Huh.” Tedd seemed a bit taken aback. “Well, be that as it may. If you want to go that career route, better you should do it because you want to, and _chose_ to, not because you were dragged slowly and inexorably into it by my father’s machinations.”

“True,” conceded Grace.

“So, you’re not furious with him? Or… us?” asked Sarah, seeking reassurance.

“I’m pretty mad at him, yes, but nowhere near as much as I pretended to be.” He glanced at Sarah and Grace. “I _am_ hurt that you kept things from me, but I really do understand why you did what you did. Just… please don’t do it again, okay? No more secrets?”

“Of course,” said Grace, giving him a hug.

“We promise,” added Sarah, piling onto the group hug.

“Though that’s going to make planning surprise birthday parties a little difficult,” said Grace.

Tedd chuckled, and Sarah was relieved to hear that sound. “Okay. Exception made for trivial things that we’ll be happy to find out about.” Then he snorted, and shook his head. "At least now I know why Dad was willing to pay for this trip."

They clung to each other for a few minutes, exchanging little kisses back and forth between them every now and then. Sarah slowly relaxed, both relieved that things between the three of them weren’t damaged by their actions, and relieved to have the whole sting operation over with.

“Why are you all _smooching_?”

Sarah looked up to see a pair of young eyes peering at them over the back of the seat in front of them. She pulled back from Tedd and Grace a little, suddenly conscious that they were still in a public place. Grace and Tedd pulled apart a little too, but Tedd kept a hold on each of their hands.

“We’re smooching because we love each other,” said Grace simply.

“Oh.” The boy, whom Sarah guessed to be about seven or eight years old, looked puzzled. “Are you a family?”

“Yes,” said Tedd, without hesitation. Sarah’s heart soared at that simple affirmation.

“But you’re all different colors. Are you adopted too?”

Grace chuckled, and said, “We’re not siblings.”

“Sibbings?” The boy looked blank.

“We’re not brother and sisters. We’re… boyfriend and girlfriends,” said Grace.

“But… there are _three_ of you.”

“Well, that means we get to have more people to love,” said Sarah.

“Huh. Weird.” He held up a small model of the Saturn V. “I got a rocket at the store.”

“Sweet,” said Tedd, with genuine admiration.

“Did you guys see that eagle flying around inside?”

“I’m pretty sure it was a hawk,” said Grace with a grin.

“But if y— _it_ had been an eagle, we could have said, ‘The Eagle has landed’ again,” murmured Tedd. Sarah groaned, and Grace poked him in the ribs. The boy looked confused.

“Rashaun!” called a woman from the front of the bus. “Stop bothering those people and get back up here with us.” The boy rolled his eyes, but slid out of the seat in front of them.

“Bye,” said Rashaun, and he wandered back to the front of the bus, holding the rocket up and flying it through the air as he went. Sarah watched him go, wondering if he would talk to his mother about the weird group of people in the back of the bus who were boyfriend and girlfriends. But he settled into a seat next to a teenaged girl who was immersed in her phone, and he didn’t say anything. She turned to Tedd.

“So. We’re a family, are we?” she asked with a shy smile.

Tedd ducked his head and slowly smiled back. “Aren’t we?"

“Yes,” said Grace firmly. “We are.”

“We are,” agreed Sarah. She felt a rush of love, and relief that things were all right between them.

“Good,” said Tedd. He sat back in the seat, relaxing a little, and smiled at them. “Glad we got that settled. So, now that you’re no longer working, what do we do want to do with the rest of our spring break?”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the pedants: Yes, I know there are no small exhibition rooms at the end of the Apollo/Saturn V Center main exhibition hall. But this is set a couple of years in the future, so maybe they’ve been added by then… :-)


	10. Defiance

Sarah leaned forward a little, hands flat on the counter in front of her, and stared at herself in the mirror. The pale-faced, wide-eyed woman staring back at her looked almost a stranger. Behind her, her sister Carol and Susan were quietly arguing about something. Something that was apparently vitally important to the two of them, but Sarah couldn’t quite muster the interest or energy to figure out exactly what their point of contention was. Her cousin Ruthie was watching the argument with a bemused expression on her face, but she wasn’t joining in.

 _Okay. You can do this,_ she told her reflection. _We’ve made it this far. Mom is still talking to me. Tedd and Grace are here. I just need to keep it together for another hour. Anything after that is gravy._

She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. “Carol,” she said. The arguing continued, unabated. “Carol!” Still no response. Her eyes snapped open, and she glared into the mirror at her sister behind her. _“Carol!”_

Her sister closed her mouth mid-sentence, and turned toward Sarah. “Yes?” She made eye contact with Sarah in the mirror, and flinched, looking a little guilty.

“Would you mind finding Mom and Dad? I haven’t seen them since I got here, and I’m getting a little worried.”

“I told you, I saw them this morning at—” Carol cut herself off at Sarah’s continued glare. “Uh. Right. Sure, I’ll go check.”

“Thanks.” She waited until Carol left, then turned around to face Susan. “Do I even _want_ to know what that was all about?”

Susan looked abashed. “Um. Nothing. Nothing important, anyway.”

“Then, for the sake of my fraying sanity, could you two _please_ hold off on this… _discussion_ … until later?”

“Sure. Sorry, Sarah.”

Sarah sighed, reached up to rub her face in her hands, then froze before she could touch her face. She grimaced and lowered her hands. “Thanks. Sorry for snapping.”

“You didn’t.” Susan laid a hand on Sarah’s arm. “How’re you holding up?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Well, yes. That’s the base-line minimum requirement. But how are you other than that?”

“Uh… mixed? Everything sorta fluctuates between feeling a little surreal and feeling _too_ real. Realer than real.”

Susan frowned slightly, then nodded. “Do you want a glass of wine or something?”

Sarah laughed. “Jeez, I _must_ look bad if you’re offering me wine.”

“To be honest, although you’re stunningly beautiful—you’ve also… looked better.”

“Well… that would about fit with how I feel.”

“Do you still want to go through with this?”

Sarah stared at Susan incredulously.

“You’re not required by law or anything to stay here,” Susan said. “We can hop into my car and get out of here. Right now, if you want.”

“No… no. That’s _not_ what I want.”

“Okay. Just checking. I was _pretty_ sure that wasn’t what you wanted. I just wanted to make sure _you_ knew that that wasn’t what you wanted.”

Ruthie came over to them with two glasses of champagne, and shoved one of them into Sarah’s hand. “Here. You didn’t say no. And I think it’ll help, too.” She clinked her glass against Sarah’s and took a sip.

Sarah snorted, but didn’t refuse the glass. As she took a sip, she looked at Susan and Ruth, and had to repress a giggle. Her cousin Ruth was a short, curvaceous blonde, what her Uncle Myron called “zaftig.” Standing next to tall, slender Susan, they resembled a female Abbott and Costello. Especially in their matching dresses. Sarah took another sip, enjoying the flavor, then shook her head and smiled.

“If I ever doubted that you loved me,” she said to Susan, “seeing you in that dress would remove all doubt.” Ruthie laughed, and Susan snorted.

“Just remember this. I’ll be collecting on it, someday,” Susan warned.

“I look forward to it.”

There was a knock at the door, and a young woman stuck her head in the door and said, “Fifteen minute warning.” Then she disappeared.

“Shit.” Sarah’s pulse accelerated. She knocked back the rest of the glass of champagne without even thinking about it. She looked around the room. “Where’s Carol? And Dad? And Mom?”

Before anyone could reply, the door opened again, and Carol walked in with their parents, Rob and Rachel. They were all a little breathless.

“Ta-daa!” said Carol. “Told you there was nothing to worry about.”

“Sorry, sweetie, there was a wreck on the highway. We got stuck in traffic for almost an hour,” her father said.

“You couldn’t have _called?”_ The sharp question was out of her mouth before she could stop herself, then she flushed. “Sorry, I didn’t—”

“No, no, that’s fine. We _did_ call, but, you don’t have your phone on you, and Carol…” Rob glanced at his older daughter.

Carol flushed a little with embarrassment. “I left my phone on silent,” she admitted. “Twenty-six missed calls.”

“But, we’re here now, and that’s what matters.”

“Right.” Sarah turned to her mother, who had remained silent throughout this whole exchange. “So… how do I look, Mom?”

Rachel smiled faintly. “You’re lovely, dear.” She paused, looked around the room, then took Sarah’s hand in hers and pulled her over to a window alcove overlooking the gardens outside. It was as close to private as they could get, with the other people in the room.

Sarah felt a quiver in her stomach, worried about what her mother might have to say. Rachel looked at her, and she tucked an errant piece of baby’s breath back into Sarah’s hair. She smiled at Sarah, with more warmth this time, and said quietly, “Sarah… I love you.”

Sarah felt tears prickle in her eyes, and she blinked rapidly, not wanting to test her makeup’s ‘guaranteed waterproof’ claim just yet. “Love you too, Mom.” Over her mother’s shoulder she could see her father watching them, with a look of concern on his face.

“You know I’ve had my… reservations… about this relationship,” she said. Sarah nodded mutely. “But, I want you to be fulfilled, and happy. And they _do_ seem to make you happy.”

“Very much so.”

“Good. Good.” Rachel looked down, as if considering something, then she reached into her clutch and pulled out a long narrow jewelry box. It had once been white, but was now a light yellow, and crackled with age. She handed it to Sarah.

“Here. I want you to have this.” It was hinged along the long edge. Sarah prised it open hesitantly, not quite sure what to expect.

Inside lay a triple strand of pearls, of slightly varying lengths. The pearls glistened, almost seemed to glow against the worn black velvet lining of the box. They were starkly beautiful in their simplicity. Sarah looked up in surprise at her mother. “Mom… I…”

Rachel smiled, a little sadly. “They were my mother’s. Your grandmother’s.” Sarah was startled. She had never seen the necklace before. Her mother had certainly never worn it in her presence. Rachel paused to take a breath, then added, in a low, flat voice, “She would have hated your triad. Loathed it with every fiber in her being.”

Sarah started, and pulled back a little from her mother, eyes widening, not sure what to make of that. “Ah…”

Her mother’s expression grew… _quietly fierce_ , was the only way Sarah could think to describe it. “But… I am _not_ my mother. So. I’m giving them to you. In _defiance_ of that hate. Wear them in love, my sweet girl. Love your partners, as long as you live. And never let someone else’s small-mindedness stand in the way of your love.”

Sarah suspected that this was the closest she was ever going to get to an apology from her mother. She threw her arms around her mother and did her best not to cry, and ruin her makeup. “I love you, Mom,” she whispered in her mother’s ear.

Rachel seemed to be struggling to hold back tears of her own. “I love you too, my Sarah-bear. Don’t you _ever_ doubt it.”

“I won’t.” They pulled apart, and stared in each other’s eyes, hands clasped between them.

“And I’m proud of you. Your strength. For fighting for your love. Even if I don’t understand it.”

Sarah took a breath and held it, to keep her tears at bay. They hugged again for few moments longer, then pulled apart, and they each dabbed gently at their eyes.

Sarah held the box out to her mother. “Would you help me put them on?” she asked shyly. She turned around, presenting her neck to her mother. Looking up, she saw her father watching them, smiling and wiping tears from his eyes. _Thank you_ , she mouthed to him. He gave her a gentle nod back. 

Ruthie looked at Sarah as Rachel stepped back, and said, “Oh, those are just perfect!”

The pearls lay cool on her neck, and when she looked in the mirror, they seemed to have been made to go with her dress. Sarah stared at her image in the full-length mirror: the pearls, the long flowing white dress, more make-up than usual, and the flowers in her hair. She bit her lip and tried not to tear up again at the sight of the necklace.

Someone knocked at the door again, and said, “Five minutes, ladies and gents. Let’s get into positions.” Sarah’s incipient tears vanished with the jolt of anticipation that swept through her. There was a brief rush at the mirrors as the women re-checked their makeup and touched up their lipstick.

Susan, Carol, and Ruth lined up in front of her parents, and Sarah took the opportunity to give each of them a hug. Susan, her matron of honor, held onto her for a little longer than the others, murmuring “Love you. And I’m so happy for you all,” before letting her go.

Her parents each took one of her arms, and Sarah fought down the urge to hyperventilate.

“Do I look OK?” she asked her father nervously.

“Oh, my girl, you could not possibly be more beautiful if you tried.”

Sarah nodded jerkily in response, and followed her attendants down the hall to the right-side entry to the chapel. They paused before the closed doors. Down the hall to her left she could see Grace’s party, with Ellen, Vladia and Indrani, lining up at the left-hand doors, but she avoided looking closely at Grace just yet. She took a deep breath, straightened her spine, and set her face as serenely as she could. She clenched her teeth around an only slightly hysterical giggle.

“Holy shit, we’re actually here,” she whispered.

Her father gave a quiet snort, and even her mother chuckled.

The music changed, and the doors in front of them swung open. Her bridesmaids walked serenely down the aisle in front of them. As they reached the altar and moved to the sides, she could see Tedd there, already waiting. Looking more joyous than nervous, she was glad to note.

When both hers and Grace’s attendants were in position, the music shifted and swelled. She took a deep breath and stepped forth with her parents. Grace did the same to her left, on the arm of Dr. Sciuridae, her grandfather. As the music flowed through her, Sarah suddenly thought, _Oh. So that’s why they call it a “Wedding_ March _.”_

Head held high and smiling, Sarah marched forth to meet her future with Tedd and Grace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd initially planned to illustrate the entire wedding party, but, since I'm not Dan, this took me over 10 hours. So, yeah, no. :-)

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to Kuilin for the help with copy-editing. All remaining errors are my own, where I chose to ignore their probably more grammatically correct advice :-).


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